Dear Kid,

I love you dearly, and I love being able to help you. Since you have looked several places for the type of Clif Bars you want and haven’t been able to find them, I will see what I can do about getting them and mailing them off. And since you don’t have a Dick’s Sporting Goods handy and you need stuff for crew, I will do my best to act as your personal shopper and shipper. I might even be persuaded to send you a box of homemade baked goods sometime in the future.

But under no circumstances am I going to send you a roll of quarters.

I love that you’re doing laundry. As I have mentioned, cleanliness is next to not stinking-ness which is a good thing all around.

A roll of quarters weighs (approximately) half a pound. According to the post office, mailing you a package weighing half a pound costs (approximately) $3. Which, if I’ve done the math correctly (and I’m pretty sure I have) is (approximately) 30% of the cost of a roll of quarters. Since there is nothing interesting or different about quarters acquired on a college campus and quarters acquired at home, I’m pretty sure you can toddle off to a local bank and politely ask them to exchange $10 in bills for a roll of laundry tokens. I am quite certain you will not be the first person with such a request.

However, since you asked so nicely, I might be persuaded to move a few quarters into your bank account to make the quarter acquisition less painful. AND I shall supply you with interesting information about quarters. I’m just that kind of mom. How lucky can you get?

The first quarters were minted in 1796. If you find one from then, DO NOT use it for laundry (except under Dire Circumstances).

In other parts of the world, coins often represent 20% of the major denomination rather than 25%. The US decision to go with quarters dates back to colonial times when the most common currency used was the Spanish dollar. If you ask a pirate (or a pirate’s parrot), he’ll tell you that chopping a Spanish dollar into 8 wedges was the common way to make change and gave us the term “pieces of eight.” So two bits equals a quarter. Unless you’re referring to the song and cadence in which case “shave and a haircut…one quarter” is just plain silly. The point is that even though we don’t have a coin worth 12.5 cents (or even 7.5 cents – extra points if you get the reference) the term two-bits is still with us. And you need a bunch of them for laundry.

Because there was no one-bit coin, a dime (10¢) was sometimes called a short bit and 15¢ a long bit.

For coins, the front is called the “obverse” and the back is called the “reverse.” This is so coin collectors can immediately identify anyone who talks about the “front” and “back” as someone not In The Know.

Before 1965 quarters were made out of silver (making them worth more than 25¢ these days). Now quarters are minted from an alloy of copper (mostly) and nickel (less than 10%). Quarters have 119 ridges on the edge making them ideal for picking up all sorts of dirt and germs. No clue whose idea the 119 is.

It is 16 kinds of illegal to make tokens the same size as the official coin of the realm, so you can’t go to Chuck E Cheese and hope their tokens will be the solution.

Happy laundry,

Love, Mom

Shave and a Haircut Two Bits

Seven and a Half Cents (Pajama Game)….I figured it out!

Dear Kid,

High schools, colleges, and countless friends do their best to prepare you for college. As your parents, we’ve spent the last 18 years trying to teach you the things you’ll need for a success life (and the last three months collecting things you’ll need for a successful first semester–still CANNOT believe how much all of that cost).

But, my darling, there are things we left out. Or may have glossed over. Or may have said several thousand times but are worried you didn’t hear.

So just in case you missed these…

1. The point of college is to learn something. Shocking, I know. Please try to find some time to get your homework done.

2. Not all learning takes place in the classroom. You never know where or from whom you will learn something interesting, relevant, or mildly amusing. A Great Sage once told me that nothing you learn is ever wasted. It may not be obvious how you’ll use what you’ve learned, but learning just for the sake of learning is a good thing.

3. Girls tend to prefer boys who do not smell like the bottom the sewer. Doing laundry every now and then is an excellent idea.

4. Kindness is never wasted. Be nice to someone today. Smile. You never know how much someone else needs that smile.

5. The other point of college is to make good friends. If you’re not comfortable telling your mother about your friends, they probably aren’t the people you’re supposed to be friends with.

6. Worrying is only useful up to a point. Think about this time last year: what were you worrying about then? (Besides football.) See what I mean?

7. Proofread. I just read a blurb (an entire three sentences) written by and about someone who describes herself as a tech-savvy writer and was trying to get companies to hire her. Yet there was great big honking grammatical error in the blurb. Yark! Did not inspire me to recommend her. (NOTE: the exception to looking down upon typos and mistooks is when your mother oops-es in this blog.)

8. Be polite. It’s free. But it generates a huge payback. It might even make you feel good.

9. Trust your instincts. You are a good kid. You make good decisions. Trust yourself.

10. We are still (and always) here for you. Seriously. Just because you are Acquiring Higher Education does not mean we stop being your parents. We’re here to help with anything we can. Except finding research sources at 2am–for that, you’re on your own.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I know that Pi Day is traditionally March 14 and/or July 22, but since your sister is coming home today, it seems like an early celebration is in order.

So Happy Pi (is coming home today) Day.

I will be spending the majority of the day driving to Indianapolis and then driving back with an additional child and 953 tons of laundry, so I don’t have much time to write a long letter to you. Which in no way means you are less important than Pi. It’s just that until I grow a second pair of hands and eyes and/or voice recognition gets good enough to allow me to dictate text, edit, and modify graphics, I’ll be keeping my eyes on the road rather than on a computer.

I know you’re not big into Pinterest, but I have launched a DearKidLoveMom Pinterest page anyway. It will not surprise you to learn that while there are a few semi-serious pins, mostly the pins are of the Amusing Variety. (Mascots are coming.) I am working to make life Exceedingly Easy for you by putting a feed on this site from Pinterest, but I haven’t got the code working yet. Sigh. Stay tuned.

And feel free to check out the site in the meantime. Who knows? You might like it. (Grin)

Love, Mom