A few of the short short stories I included in Quarantine Monster Shorts were inspired by some of the weirder news stories of 2020 where I gave supernatural/paranormal/ridiculous reasons for them happening. I decided to share a brief explanation of those news stories in case you forgot. Here is the fourth one. Enjoy!
The first sign that anything was amiss with the Department of the Treasury was an actual sign at my local grocery store.
It said something about not giving out extra change, please pay with a card or exact change, no quarters, etc. Then I started seeing them everywhere: drive thru windows, restaurant Facebook pages, and my apartment office. I even heard some places were giving discounts if people paid in change so they could replenish their supply.
Who had coin shortage on their pandemic bingo card, because I absolutely did not see it coming.
I asked the gal at customer service at Hy-Vee (midwest grocery store chain) what was going on and she said she had been told that a couple of the mints closed with the lockdown and supply chain issues was causing the Dept. of Treasure (they really missed out on an opportunity there) was struggling to make enough coins to meet the demand. The teller at my bank said basically the same thing.
Thankfully, I had a small supply of quarters and I spent most of the lockdown wearing the same four pieces of clothing so I didn't have any issues. In fact, I ran out of quarters shortly after coins came back so I got two rolls of shiny new 2020 quarters.
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| Shiny new 2020 quarters celebrating the Salt River Bay in the U.S. Virgin Islands |
One is going in my pandemic scrapbook... if I had a pandemic scrapbook. I think at this point it's just a dusty old shoebox that I will sage and burn once the nightmare ends.
Look for "Coins" in Quarantine Monster Shorts coming October 2021.
made me smile - Dave and I used to give rolls of quarters to HS graduates to be ready for the college laundry mat
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