Cuprolaminophobia is the fear of coins. I don't have it, but after yesterday I don't think it would be completely unreasonable to possess this phobia. We have been throwing our coins into a vase for quite a few years. Along the way, we threw in a few other things (coin wrappers, a rubber band) and apparently a sizable amount of some liquid. I'm just going to go with water, for the sake of my sanity. At any rate, the paper coin wrappers partially disintegrated, the pennies oxidized together, and the rubber band fused to any coin that it touched.
Confident that the nice people at Coinstar wouldn't appreciate having our "coin stew" tossed into their machines, I've set about washing the coins. There is nothing more disgusting than washing money. If I get some incurable nail fungus, or some sort of staph infection, please know that this was the moment it happened, and I'll never prepare food for you again. Some of the coins are just ruined. Others have maintained the shape of their former selves, but have no identifying features. I'm hoping the coin counting machine goes by size and weight, but I will have to get back to you on the results. Right now, the coins are spread out on cookie sheets and are drying in the sun like metallic raisins. I'm hand washing change. I keep thinking, "It's okay...there must be about a thousand dollars here." I think we all know where this is going. I'll report back on the total as well. It had better be more than 25 bucks.
