Of Creeping Me Out

One of Philip's three goals for this weekend was to clean out his closet.  I had thought I might join him in his Saturday afternoon ambition, so I headed in the direction of my closet.  I took one step in, made a sweeping look around, and walked away.  Well, let me re-phrase that because I feel I implied there was room to step into my closet.  I stood on the threshold, rather, took one sweeping glance, and turned around to walk away.

A more lazy better use of my time, I decided, would be to grab the plastic purple treasure box I've had since elementary school (it came with a box of Crayolas - so awesome) in which I keep my pennies.  I toted the nearly-full box with me back from my parents' house in June and have planned to cash them in, but have yet to do so.  And one of my many useless enjoyments in life is counting change, so even though there is no point, as the machine at the bank will do it for me, I settled down to count out my pennies - just to see what kind of hidden treasure we would find.

Making conversation, I pondered to Philip, "I bet I have $10 in here.  What do you think?"

In his wordy, yet manly, way, he responded, "Yep."

"Seriously?  You're not even going to throw me a guess?"

Exasperated, though mildly amused by his adorably childish wife, he tossed out, "$7.63."

Satisfied he was at least pretending to play along, I began to dole out the change - creating stacks of ten pennies each, lined up in groups of ten.  After about the first twenty cents, I was beginning to believe I may have overshot a little bit.  He might be a tad closer - darn it.

I weeded out the dimes (they didn't count in my mind) and the one wheat penny we won't be cashing in.

After six dollars, I was beginning to see my husband was most likely going to win this silly game (of which I was the only one who cared).  After seven dollars I was beginning to get a little freaked out.  There was clearly not an entire dollar left in my diminished pile - he probably wasn't going to be exact, but he'd be darn close.

With each stack of ten, I began to giggle a bit more, piquing Philip's interest. "What?"

"I'm at $7.50," I announced as we both eyed the meager pile of pennies remaining.

"But it's still probably not exactly $7.63," he doubted.

I counted out the final ten-stack.

Here was my finished product:

This man creeps me out.

This is the same man who, when playing Loaded Questions with 11 other people, half of whom were virtual strangers, he correctly matched each person (something that never happens in that game, especially with so many people) on the amount of time we all spend in the bathroom on average.

Creeps me out.

But I tell you what, I'm taking him to every "Guess the number of marbles in the jar" game I can find from here on out.  Either that, or he's getting a job as a Carney guessing weights and birthdays.  We're definitely marketing this talent.


PS When you count the silver coins (which I had never intended to do, so it still doesn't really matter), I had $9.98 - I was only two cents off.  Not nearly as impressive, but makes me feel a little better about myself, so let me hold onto it.