Change

Poor people have a different relationship to change than the middle class and rich. For those of you still chest deep in the last election, I’m talking about the shiny kind of change that jingles in your pocket and collects in a jar on your dresser top.

In the last few days I have been rolling my quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies for gas. How many times I have done this I couldn’t begin to guess. I’ve been poor for so long . . . actually, I guess I’ve always been poor. I have been digging change out of couches, glove boxes and car ash trays, pants pockets in the laundry basket, off dresser tops and out of Ball jars for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, it was for fudgesicles, then for parts to repair my bicycle. When I got a car, it was to put in gas and oil, usually more of the latter. I’ve counted out change for food, dates and a lot of cheap beer.

For my educated and well employed friends, change is an annoyance. It piles up on the dresser, overloads pockets, spills over SUV cup holders and falls out of their hands at toll booths. For folks like me, it is money. Just like the folding kind. That jar on the dresser is a savings account. The car ashtray full of silver is an emergency fund. The pants pockets in the dirty laundry provide the gallon of gas necessary to get to work. Enough may be harvested from couch cushions to get a quart of milk for the kid’s cereal. Change is the bridge fund that gets you to payday from broke.

And speaking of broke, that word also means something different to the poor than it does to higher socioeconomic classes. A lawyer friend wanted me to go out for a beer with him one night. I told him I couldn’t, I was broke. He said, “Write a check.” I told him my account is empty. He said, “Take some out of savings.” I told him I have no savings. To a lawyer, broke means no new car this year. To an owner of a construction company, broke means no ski trip. To a CPA, broke means the kids don’t get braces right away. To me, broke means I have no money. None. Nada. Not even change. Broke means I don’t have enough for a bad cup of coffee.

I know almost broke when I’m behind her in line at the convenient store. She spreads quarters out on the counter and starts counting them out for gas, because she only had 38 quarters, not even enough for one complete roll. She does this with her head down, a whispered apology on her lips for the clerk, and for me and the others waiting behind her. I don’t mind the wait. I stand patiently and fight the nervous need to jingle the quarters in my own pocket.