Pockets
I lost my $10.
I accept that it was through my own actions that the money was lost. However, acceptance doesn’t make me any less grumpy about it.
Like many people, I will budget myself when attending festivals or other activities based on the amount of cash I bring with me to places. As someone whose job brings him to many events, this is a necessity so that I don’t end up with a camera bag that more resembles a shopping bag by the end of a busy weekend.
Most of the time, I bring along the cash I need for food and drinks and when it is gone, it is gone.
That’s the theory anyway. Last Saturday, I spent the day taking pictures at various venues for the Grass on the Black Bluegrass Festival.
I started on Main Street at Uncommon Ground and because it was morning, and it was warm, I got an iced Cinnamon Bun Mocha drink. Yes, I am aware that it is an inherently silly sounding name and is far from being a “manly” drink. If I wanted to be macho, I suppose I would have ordered a triple shot of deep black coffee gulped down while still steaming hot, followed by a giant bite out of a jalepeno pepper.
After 29 years of marriage, two (more-or-less) adult children, a very gray beard and receding hairline, my need to demonstrate my manliness has fallen by the wayside. I have no shame in having a preference for mochas and other “froo froo” methods of feeding my longstanding caffeine addiction.
No. I am not getting defensive about it. You are getting defensive about it. I take solace that my second favorite way for ingesting caffeine is through Lake 11’s Uncommon Porter. Which is how I planned to end my evening.
Like most women, my wife will complain about the inadequacies of pockets in women’s pants, and clothing in general. The absence of functional pockets from women’s clothing seems to be a near universal complaint to the point that some brands will specifically point out that they do indeed have pockets.
If any lessons from my various economics and marketing classes in college carried weight, the market should have corrected itself long ago to give women the voluminous pockets they loudly claim to desire.
Whenever I suggest to my wife or daughter that I think women like to complain about not having functional pockets more than actually using their market strength to enact meaningful change, I am met with icy stares that would frost a glass on a hot summer day.
As someone who has fit a quart of oil, a cellphone, wallet and keys in one of my pants pockets, I could not imagine being pocket-impaired.
The voluminous nature of my pants pockets, and my propensity to put stuff in them, was ultimately my undoing.
Rather than placing the change nicely in my wallet where it would be safe and secure, I shoved the bills and change from my drink into my pocket unprotected.
This itself would have been fine, if I had not needed to retrieve my cellphone from the same pocket later and in doing so my change came with it.
We can all see where this is going. Unfortunately, I did not realize my $10 bill had escaped like vice president Aaron Burr fleeing the country in 1807 in the wake of treason charges.
I like to imagine that the money found its way into a good hands and used for some grand and noble purpose.
Although it is a stretch to come up with a more noble purpose than supporting a local business in supplying a cool, foamy beverage on a hot summer day.
That is, of course, an exaggeration. There are, in fact, innumerable ways $10 could be spent for the betterment of those individuals and organizations in need. However, on a hot, sweaty day when you are rummaging around in your pockets for the money you thought you had to pay for the lemonade-based drink you just ordered, it is hard to put yourself in a place of altruism.
The net result of my lost cash was that I was able to purchase less beer than I had intended over the course of the day, which is something that is probably for the best, since as far as hydration goes, water works better.
Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News. Contact Brian at BrianWilson@centralwinews.com.
