A Penny Lost is a Penny Found
So, I go to David’s Bagels on 1st Avenue to get my normal lunch – a ham sandwich on an onion bagel, and a large coffee, to be enjoyed on the train up to Fordham. As it’s my usual lunch, I know how much it costs: $6.81. I usually pay with either a ten or a twenty, so either way I expect 19 cents change. To make it easier on herself, the cashier girl usually just gives me two dimes – 20 cents. I always think to myself that she’s being very generous, and sometimes wonder if she has the authority to make that decision, to be so freewheelin’ with those extra cents. But that day, I had an epiphany: “I make a penny every time I order this for lunch.” If I go a hundred times, that’s a dollar. A thousand – that’s ten dollars. This is big news when you’re still in grad school and don’t have a job. And yeah, I’m doling out money for the lunch in the first place, but a man’s gotta eat.
There I was, proud of myself, having figured out how to put one over on the Man.
Then, after coming back to the East Village after class, I decided to stop in at the market across the street to get a half-gallon of milk and a box of cereal for breakfast the next morning. Those two things cost me, as they usually do, $6.49. I paid $7, but also as usual, I only got back 50 cents. I had always been cheated out of that penny, thought twice about it, but then didn’t make a fuss. It’s a measly cent. But I only realized the significance of that penny’s absence after plotting my scheme earlier in the day.
Try to con the universe, and it evens itself right out for you.Think you’re missing something, and realize it never left.
Have faith in the ebb and flow, my friends.
