Amid crisis, mugs' change is safe

All lovely things will have an ending, All lovely things will fade and die; And youth, that's now so bravely spending, Will beg a penny by and by.

-- Conrad Aiken

It started out simply enough.

One night after work, I took out my pocket change and put it in an unused coffee mug. It got so I did that every night.

Eventually, that mug filled up, so I put it aside and got a new one.

A game was born. More like a mission, actually.

Every night: "Clink, clink, clink."

Then I would go to sleep and dream of the future.

I began to create rules for my coffee club.

For example, I kept the paper money, unwrinkling it carefully, smoothing it out and putting the bills in order of value -- Washingtons, Lincolns, Hamiltons and the rare Andy Jacksons.

I often kept back the quarters, too, They're so useful.

But the pennies, the dimes, the nickels -- they all went into my coffee cup fund.

I began to see it as an investment into the future -- a future built one penny at a time.

My wife became a regular contributor.

She carries a woman's billfold with a small change purse, and when it gets too full, it gets heavy, so she would empty the change on the kitchen table with the understanding that I could put it in my mugs.

This was a nice arrangement, too, until she found out I was keeping the quarters, and sometimes converting them into vanilla Frostys at the Wendy's drive-through.

Now I only get her pennies. And I have to ask for them. That's OK. Ain't too proud to beg. Even pennies add up.

Over the Christmas holidays I had a few days off and figured it was time to cash in.

I dumped the coins from about a dozen coffee mugs into a large plastic bucket. But I couldn't bring myself to start rolling them.

As my 401(k) dropped and my stocks sank, I began to see my coins as the most reliable investment in my portfolio, so I just kept saving them.

I did put the bucket on the bathroom scales and found my hedge against future calamity now weighs 25 pounds -- sounds British, doesn't it?

I know this is messing up the economy and I ought to go out and spend it on something American-made and frivolous.

But I can't.

It's like running one of those charity distance races I favor. I know if I quit, I lose momentum. I'll never get started up again.

So I keep pitching those pennies into the mugs ("Clink, clink") and dream of prosperity.

One day.

Reach Bill Kirby at (706) 823-3344 or bill.kirby@augustachronicle.com.