Change You Can't Believe In

We are well into the tooth-losing season for the girls. Alexis had a loose tooth for awhile, one that was just barely hanging in there the last few days. I mean, it was seriously dangling. We offered to match any money from the tooth fairy if she let us pull it, but she was attached to it, even as it was barely attached to her. Finally, last night, she reached in and gently removed it. I believe she weighed the cost / benefit analysis and realized the dangler would impede pecan pie consumption.

SPOILER ALERT follows - if you are under the age of 10, well you really shouldn't be reading my blog at all.


So, we get home, and I go to my stash of dollar coins. Dollar coins are the Tooth Fairy's currency of choice. Seems, though, that I am all out. And at nine o'clock on a Sunday night, I need to go get a dollar coin. Doesn't seem that difficult, does it?

By the way, for those of you counting at home, yes, I have now admitted that I (and Jill) are Santa Claus AND the Tooth Fairy. We are NOT the Easter Bunny, though. I still have no freaking idea how those eggs get in our yard.

So I head the the corner H-E-B. The office doesn't have one. The four checkers do not. I move on. Walgreens - no. The CVS across the street - no. The other Walgreens - no dollar coins. The other CVS across the street from the other Walgreens - no dollar coins. The Walgreens around the corner - no dollar coins. The CVS next to the Walgreens around the corner - no dollar coins.

I increase my radius. I actually walk into the Dollar Store and find they have NO DOLLAR COINS! Yes, I realize they don't actually sell dollars, but one would think they might be more likely to have dollar-valued currency of all types. No dice.

The "Everything's 99 cents!" store, no dollar coins.

There are two places I know always have dollar coins - banks and post offices. Bank are closed (it's now 1:12 am), but I know that the post offices have those postage machines that give dollar coins as change. I can buy one stamp and get lots of dollar coin change! Except that they don't anymore. Those machines have been replaced by the automated debit-card only machines. I try three post offices, just in case. And the various Walgreens / CVS combinations surrounding these post offices.

It's now 3:41 am and I am doubting that dollars coins exist. I think I've seen one, but I can't imagine how there could be a currency produced that NO ONE USES. Perhaps they only minted 20 or so of these coins.

Finally, 4:02 am, just a couple of hours before Alexis will wake up and realize that the Tooth Fairy did not bring her a gold dollar coin, instead substituting 7 nickels, a quarter, 3 dimes, and 10 pennies. A realization that will shake her faith in the Tooth Fairy, and in all things she believes to be true. Finally, 4:02 am, the nice gentleman at Chevron tells me he has not just one, but THREE dollar coins. Two Martin van Burens and a Sacajawea. Martin was the eighth president, meaning there are at LEAST ten sets of presidential and other dollar coins out there: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, JQ Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Sacajawea, & Susan B Anthony. And yet there are literally only three coins in circulation.

NOTE: Further research (well, going to Wikipedia) reveals that the William Henry Harrison and John Tyler dollar coins are also out. And that over 1.5 billion of these coins have been minted.

I get home, slip the dollar coin under her pillow just as the sun is rising, just as she is starting to stir. She is very excited about the note she got, and the Martin van Buren dollar.

I am working on a strategy to prepare the girls for the day when the Tooth Fairy has to switch currencies. Perhaps three teeth from now.