A week ago, in between bouts of the usual Vegas bullshit, a customer came in and, when given his total, put what he claimed was a ten-dollar coin on the counter.

I didn't think it was real... But I didn't want to get into it with him (I've been bouncing three people a day as of late), so I accepted it into the till.

A little while later, during a quiet period, I started to worry about whether or not it was real. And if I didn't want to get into it with a customer, I certainly didn't want to get into it with management and/or corporate. So I took a Lincoln and five Washingtons out of my wallet and exchanged them for the $10 coin out of the till.

Fast forward to tonight. I worked swing yesterday and a grave shift tonight, so I've just been browsing around the net trying to keep myself awake to make sure I'm not falling asleep behind the wheel when it's finally time to go home.

For a while, Twitch fulfilled this need quite nicely. Then it just randomly decided that, if someone hits the refresh button a hundred times, that must mean he wants to see the first frame of a thirty-second advertisement for Season 2 of Loki a hundred times. So I need to find something else to do.

And that's when I remember the $10 coin. So I look up the value by coin, plus the year (1911), one of the results is "Indian head" so I click on that, and...

Google: $1,198

Tera: "Uuuuuhhhhhhhh... Are you sure?" (gets a second opinion)

Ebay: $1,350

Tera: "Buh... Oh... Oh my god... Oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god -- Tera, calm down, don't scream and wake the neighbors."

I proceed to have shock-induced chest pains twice. First from the results, and second when I remember I had that thing in my wallet for an entire week (a wallet that I had at least twice left behind in the car because I was too busy bringing in groceries or takeout from Raising Cane's).

All thanks to a moment of complete and total spinelessness. ^^;

So... I'm not exactly in any great hurry to cash it in. I feel like it's been long enough that I can finally say this: Covid-19 was good to me.

I was an essential employee all throughout the pandemic. I followed all of the guidelines as much as possible -- I wore masks, social distanced, and basically acted like a fucking adult throughout the pandemic, and never got sick. Two of my co-workers, on the other hand, did test positive -- one of them tested positive three times. Another two gave their notice during the early months. So on top of all the stimulus that I never needed to fall back on, I worked my big fat beak off -- sixty to seventy hours a week -- and raked in overtime up the wazoo. So much so that, even after buying a car in 2022, I still technically haven't touched any of my stimulus money.

Ten years ago, this would have felt life-changing. And it's still a "holy shit!" moment, but it's not do-or-die like it would have been.

So... If there are any serious coin collectors in the fandom... *shrugs* Why not? All the pawn shops and ebay buyers will try to lowball me for it, so if I'm going to get less than it's worth, it might as well be from a fellow fur. ^_^