The answer is not 42

You know how you wind up with change in your pocket? If you are organized, it get promptly recycled. If you are like the members of this family it may stray around the house; coming to rest in the washer, dryer, on a shelf, window sill or in a container.

Multiply this by the challenge of having 2-4 operational curriencies at any one point. Not as bad as when each of the European nations had their own, but still. On any day we might have US, EU and Swiss in circulation. I don’t have much excuse for L sterling, but that does not mean that I don’t have a substantial number of coins tucked here and there.

As I have been cleaning up and organizing – I have been dropping all of the change in this jar.

I then sorted the US and EU into these two containers.

Today, the Mole and I stopped by the PX on our round of errands. The nice woman ran our container of coins through her sorting machine. $22.35. Not bad!

The German banks are not so nice. Most do not have machines. they prefer their customers to sort and roll coins. The Eldest brought me back coin papers. Unlike in with the US coins, I have no large coins. It seems that all the Strassenbahn ticket machines will take coins down to the 10cent. My cup was full of 5, 2, and 1 cent coins. With 5×20 and 4×10 that had managed to avoid the avarice – I had, when done sorting and stuffing all these tiny little coins into bundles – 22.35E worth of coins.

I have still to sort out the UK change, but I am starting to be seriously freaked.

-Holly
Heidelberg, Germany

and the answer is …. 22.35. Which means the answer to live, the Universe and everything is NOT 42 …

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10 Responses to The answer is not 42

  1. April says:

    you had better grab your towel then ……

  2. Ron says:

    I have fond memories of pockets full of coins from multiple European countries. I wish we had a $5 coin… I also wish would could retire the penny in consumer transactions.

  3. Ann says:

    Come on…need to see photos of the jars! That’s a lot of coin.

  4. Chere says:

    Aw, shuck. The girls are going to be bummed out about that….

  5. Ruth says:

    Oh Holly, you MUST be wrong! Surley there is some small element you missed that makes it all equal 42 rather than 22.35…..Happy Towel Day!

  6. Alison says:

    Coin it be done? Yes it coin!

  7. Holly says:

    OWWWW!!!!!!

  8. Carmen says:

    I don’t know about 22.35, but I will keep my eye out for it.

  9. Mary says:

    So did you have £22.35 in coins to complete the trifecta??!!

  10. Holly says:

    ummm, actually yes. Along with the same in Swiss Francs. At that point, I grabbed my towel and went in hiding.

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