I can't spend it either

For as long as I can remember I’ve had a pathalogical hatred for five cent pieces. I used to have a theory that if you made the 5c coin into a note people would hang onto it like it was valuable. Not only would this have become a health hazard as people slipped on discarded 5c notes traipsing down stairs but it would have probably consumed so much plastic as to send petrol prices skyrocketing. Even if the fuckers were heavy you’d feel like there was something to them like they weren’t the absolute detritus that they are (I’m writing like Helen Raiser today) but again anything sufficiently heavy is probably worth more than 5c. I’d be happy, in fact fucking over the moon if those Allens frogs just became legal tender worth 5c. How sweet it would be to Hand over a 20 for something that cost you $19.95 and get handed a red frog to jam in your craw.
So anyway me and a friend were cruising down Southbank to get some chilli-choc chip ice-cream when we were fooling around and I was wearing like a Hawaiian shirt and one of my dad’s old blazers complete with conference nametag still attached and my Summer of Love Shorts* so not only should I not judge the odd looking kids that hang around Flinders St these days (and even odder jocular looking kids that have decided to look odd intentionally) but I should be thankful I was getting any action at all.
Anyway by far my favourite street performer of all time was performing, the Amazing Mr Fish and his 10ft suicycle. He was fucking great if anyone could have replaced Dylan Lewis when they butchered Recovery and sent Dylan sailing out on the 10.30 slot it was the Amazing Mr. Fish. Not only was the stunt of dressing up in a straight Jacket and climbing onto a ten foot unicycle before attempting to escape actually an impressive busking act he cracked unPC jokes at all the foreign tourists watching his show. A kid walked through his act once chucking a tantrum and he said ‘I love kids…couldn’t eat a whole one though. I have one in my freezer, those bastards are too hard to peel.’ And such calibre comments delivered with sincerity and condescension.
Anyway at the end of the show he’d say ‘Folks if you enjoyed the show please step up and put a twenty in my hat, if you don’t have a twenty that’s okay a ten or a five will do. If you don’t have that I’ll also accept gold coins. If all you have is silver keep it. I can’t spend it either. This show is my gift to you.’
So anyway I’m on the train to work listening to Steve my good mate who has sworn to protect me and I take that very seriously, telling me lewd jokes and asking me if I’ve got any change. I don’t hesitate I dig into my pockets trying to separate coins from my key ring because I love Steve and all but you don’t want to hand someone the keys to your apartment and inadvertently ruin the friendship. All I’ve got is 40c. Steve laughs at me but takes it anyway and counts up his clams to see if he’s made the holy $3 mark that I think buys a Kebab. Then he hands me 2 x 5c pieces as change. I sit them on my desk and stare at them all day in the same way I stare at my kinetic art Christmas gift wondering how I can destroy it. At least a 1¥ piece (1¥ = AU0.73c) were made out of plastic and you could chew them up if you had too many like they were sunflower seeds (remarkably close to the Allen’s dream really you just had to hope some Japanese Hentai Sarariman hadn’t shoved it up his rectum at some point).
So anyway at KFC** and Red Rooster*** they have my favourite charity boxes there for Muscular Dystrophy a charity I feel strongly for for again entirely irrational reasons (they have posters of a kid dressed up as Batman and the caption ‘His enemy is his own body’ and there’s a kid on the other platforms in the morning that gets to wear a batman costume to school and I wish I could do the same for work so all my change goes to this charity, I’ve never met someone directly or indirectly affected by muscular dystrophy that I know of) and it’s sweet. I no longer accumulate 5c and it’s odious older brother the 10c piece towards this charity that I imagine can do what I have never done and collect them all together and walk into a bank (the thought baffles me) and exchange them for something you can actually spend.
SO how do I get all the 5c pieces sitting in a bowl at home into that box? How do I do it. I wasn’t thinking about it when Steve handed me two more of the fuckers (do the 7-Eleven guys feel infuriated when someone says ‘forget about the change’ is getting rid of those things why stores mark things so you either have 19 x 5c pieces or your getting fucking change prices) because I was trying to think of a joke that Steve would find funny eventually settling on ‘What’s brown and sticky?... a stick’ which he didn’t find funny after guessing the much funnier ‘piece of shit’ two of which I had in my hands.
My dearest friend in the whole world or at least most consistent Bryce got me a Sporran to go with my kilt when I was in Ballarat. So one day I put some coins in it and endeavoured to go to the shops. The stereotypes about the Scots are true I discovered because when I opened up my sporran to pay for the ice-cream at the supermarket I discovered it had just swallowed my coins I had to bash it with my fist upside down to get a coin out of it. Now there is a one way purse you tight Scottish bastards. Anyway this was less embarrassing a retail experience for me as I felt today in Red Rooster pulling out a toiletries bag (it took me half an hour to come up with this idea for a container) and painstakingly feeding 5 and 10c pieces through the inadequate slot and having the shift manager watch me do it. I probably put $20 towards the cause right then and there (2kg worth at least probably = 75c) it was my most generous donation. Yet I was embarrassed doing it, at least some Safeway employee could go home from their mind numbing job and tell their family about the kid in the kilt and sporran who was bashing his coin purse and swearing at those miserly Scottish bastards while his ice-cream melted and give him the momentary delusion that his job exposes him to interesting people. This was just being gawked at and I felt completely fucking conspicuous which should feel good when your being charitable, and I was it was the best possible way I could dispose of that crap.
So anyway I got rid of the fuckers and felt an enormous weight off my back, what a great insight into Tom’s Id.

*Another one of my obstinate policies I had a pair of black shorts that where exactly knee length and I’d decided were perfect, furthermore because of the starch factor had decided you didn’t wash shorts either. This was combined with my Summer of Love diet of Salsa and cheese melted in a roll that dripped onto my shorts every time I ate them. I was a fucking genius though I colored in the food stains with a black texta for 2 solid months.

**I love KFC, they have lousy service, unhealthy foods, constantly understaffed, unclean facilities, a Klansman as a mascot and use plastic packaging for everything making it a completely shithouse experience to eat there. One I ironically appreciate to the extreme, although their Extreme burger Combo should bare the disclaimer ‘Not to be consumed by one person’ or else legislate that they call it ‘the fat bastard’ combo)
***I remember when red rooster came to Ballarat and I went into this shitty new fast food store to see what it was like and had to take a number like the Safeway Deli and I thought ‘Well this IS different’