A Nickel Poorer

The parking lot I walk across each morning to enter my town’s park for a few laps offers a stingy windfall of pocket change – pennies, nickels, dimes, even quarters. Some mornings they pay my coffee and pastry. And like an unleashed dog I let my eyes run ahead of me looking for that glint of silver or copper scattered among a variety of litter – wads of gum, discarded food, broken beer bottles, dog and seagull droppings, and human vomit. This morning I have competition, a seagull. By its lowered head and focused gaze, it has found something worthy of its attention, if not appetite. Cautiously I approach close enough to see the find: a nickel, which, before I can take another step, it promptly gulps down and flies off with loud squeaky cries, or was he laughing at my loss? I didn’t begrudge the bird. My rule in these finds has always been: who sees it first, takes it. Anyway, he’d be back in the morning to deposit the undigested coin, only this time covered in disgusting excrement, certainly nothing to look at, much less pick up and pocket, and I a nickel poorer.