Severe Serendipity!

Well, tonight’s blog is not only LATE, as in, it is already night and I should be sleeping with Jack [who is a cat, by the way!]… but also, tonight’s blog has absolutely nothing to do with books, or things bookish.
I am drying my freshly washed laundry right now.
Bed linen!

Remember a few days ago when I mentioned my friend, the one who sent me the signed Alice Munro book, unaware that the signature was authentic, [which has since been proved authentic by a team of researchers?] Remember that?
Remember how I said that she is “forever doing these sort of serendipitous things?”
Well, it happened again, the serendipity!

See, I have to do my laundry at the pay machines, downstairs.
And so, I had done a load of bed linen.
Well, I went down to the laundry room with some change in my pocket. Each dryer load costs $1.75. I had $3.25 in my pocket. [This is going to take a bit of math here folks!]
OK, so I place my $1.75 in the slots. A one-dollar piece, what us Canadians call a “loonie” [because it has a “loon” on it] and three quarters. Throw the sheets and pillowcases in. Fabric softener sheets. Slam the door.
Punch the plunger with the money in it.
KERPLUNK!
Money goes into the netherworld! The same planet that eats your socks, I guess!

No action! The thing is deader than six wigs!
I say, “Hey, hey HEY!”
The guy yonder, who is putting his load of clothes in a washer says, “No! It ate your money?”
“Yes,” I say, loud enough that Jack probably turned his head, 14 floors up! “And I don’t have enough to try another machine! I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH CHANGE! I’m a quarter short!”
The guy gives me one of those looks that says, “Damn, I’d help you out but I don’t have any extra change either!”
I was mad!
“Arrrrgggghhh!”
How am I supposed to sleep tonight on soggy damn…..!!??

AHA!
Like a flash of lightning, a vision of the top of my fridge passed through my noggin!
Quarters! American ones, though!
But quarters, nonetheless!
Once, a long time ago now, and I mean like YEARS ago, my serendipitous friend sent me a series of American quarters, special editions, that had famous scenes from different U.S. states on them. Like, for instance, the Delaware one had Paul Revere [or maybe it’s Rip Van Winkle, or even Hoss Cartwright, I’m still not sure] riding a horse and stuff.

I took the elevator up to my place and ran to the fridge!
YES!
They are still there! After all this time.
I grabbed one of them. It had a sort of….. fuzz on it. I scraped this stuff off while I descended in the elevator, praying all the while, “Lord, please bless this Yankee quarter. I really need it to have a good sleep tonight. And you KNOW how badly I need a good sleep…. so please, dear God, if you help this fuzzy foreign quarter to fit in the tray real nice, if you just miraculously Canadianize it tonight, I promise that I will become a missionary to…..” [by now I am placing the thing alongside the other two, and PUSHING the tray forward]….. BINGO!
The coins fall…… the light goes on…… I’m in business…… just as I say….
"HAWAII."

Yes…. missionary to Hawaii… Waikiki!
Missionary to the Macadamians!
I hear they are NUTS!
And I hear that there are way too many heathens there…….!

Thank you my serendipitous friend.
You unintentionally, inadvertently, silently, touch my world, yet again!

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