In my many iterations of scooting furniture across tile, I resolved to deal with the loose change in a pile I kept moving from surface to surface. Like the avocados I polished yesterday, scanning each unripened hard shell for bird poo, I examined the surface of the coins for size, detail, worth.
Change, ‘cambio,’ directly translates in it’s various forms between English and Spanish. You can ask for change or you can change, and both forms work in Spanish too. I don’t think it works with changing clothes in Español, that’s vestirse. Nevertheless, I stacked the change in two separate piles and compared the different moneys. For the last nine weeks, the monedas/coins have been slipping around in the small pocket of my messenger baggalini, resilient brand I tell ya. Survived Europe, Alaska, Central America: braved thirty airport security airport lines in the last three years. I imagine the coins have been on their own adventures.
The ATM/cajero spits out 100s so I always have to ask the vendors “Tienes cambio?” because I never have ‘sencillo’ meaning small bills.
I resolved to separate the currencies because the US coins, while worth a bundle here, are equally pointless hoy en día. (Why do we put dead people’s pictures on money? Most of those people existed before the dollar bill. That’s the last place I would want my face. A theatre, a school, zoo, grocery store: silhouette away. People gotta eat. But money? Ick. The germiest thing you could probably think of is change. I clean my toilet but I’ve never cleaned a penny.)
As I stacked the germ pendants in like piles, a little coin skyline, I couldn’t help but feel the weight of the metaphor (as I’m wont to do). These coins have been building friction in my purse, two countries mixed. All the Change.