I realized one day that the large cup in which I stored all of my change could no longer hold another nickel. I spent an hour thinking about my options, among which was the possibility of commissioning a new container, before resolving to go to the corner bank and seeing about some wrappers. Much to my surprise, they were free, which was a rumor I'd heard once, but refreshing to find true.

With a handful of paper waiting to be filled with coins, each a different color for a different denomination, I returned to my apartment and poured out the cup on the futon next to me. The sound of all the change clinking as it fell was intoxicating and I refilled the cup to do it once more before beginning my task for the afternoon. Looking at the mound of change that was surprisingly much to come from even a mocha mug, I started devising a plan of attack.

Every evening I deposited any coins in my trousers to the cup. I would not discriminate by worth. Quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies were all disposed of in the same manner, though I would check the quarters first to see if a new State had been released and had missed it on its way to my pocket. Even still, there were far more pennies than anything else. This probably had something to do my habit of counting out a tip for delivery boys in change when I was short on small bills. Though I could have given copper, I usually ignored it for fear of looking even worse than I already would. Because of their sheer number I decided that I would start with Abe and work my way up George.

It was somewhere around my fourth roll of pennies that I started to think about my ex-girlfriends. It wasn't until later that it occurred to me in what order they were remembered and it made me laugh wondering what they would have thought about it. I was counting out my five sets of ten pennies – my mind always seemed to lose track of the larger numbers so I dived it up into sets of the largest prime number that would divide evenly into what had to be rolled – and I started to think about Kelly. She was, without a doubt, the most worthless girl I'd ever associated with. Not only did she have a tendency towards cheating, but she also had a nasty habit of walking off with things from my apartment. In one week I ended up having to re-purchase my Breeders Pod disc, my copy of On the Road, and restock my liquor selection. I still don't know how she managed to smuggle out seven bottles without my notice, but then, I don't know why I kept seeing her either. As I finished up the pennies, all nine rolls of them, I realized that I was happy for two reasons: that I was no longer with her – I eventually drew a line that she just had to step over – and that I was finished counting fucking copper.

Nickels made me think about Laura. There was nothing wrong with her, per se, it was just that we didn't have much use for each other. She was a nice girl with a lot on the ball, but a way of looking at life that seemed completely the opposite of mine. I wanted to be close and she didn't. I saw the value of being financially independent, she didn't mind getting money from her parents and putting up with the crap that they asked for in return. Eventually we just became too irritating to one another. It was like when something costs two pennies over the amount of an even dollar amount and you end up with ninety-eight cents clinking in your pocket. But we were good together in some ways and it's those that will forever endear her to me.

As I glanced down at the pile of rapidly diminishing change, I realized that I was already at Roosevelt and reached for the smallest of all the paper wrappers. With the pennies and nickels, I'd been using my forefinger pushed into the bottom to prevent the coins from escaping, but I realized that it wouldn't fit and used my pinky instead. Using the same method as I did with the pennies – five sets of ten – I began to remember that, unlike the other two, I got along all right with Robin even if we had next to nothing in common. For all of our other problems, Kelly, Laura, and I all shared the same taste in movies and music. The same could not be said for Robin. While I was into grunge and rock 'n roll, she was building out her classical selection. For every David Lynch movie I wanted to see, she countered with Nora Ephron. Still, none of this stopped us from having a nice and relatively long term relationship. It was helped along by the fact that we were each the other's first loves and, as such, were willing to put up with issues that might have otherwise broken us up. The amount of forgiveness was special though and things worked just fine until the two of us began to get a little older and figured out that, while love was not an issue, we had plenty of others just waiting in the corridor to burst in and break up the party.

I set aside the four rolls of dimes and looked at the mess of quarters in front of me. They were the only coin left. I pushed them from side to side wishing for a moment that I had the Rainman's skill for numbers as I tried to figure out whether or not there were enough to wrap. As it turned out, there were enough for one. I sorted them into five sets of eight and then began to drop them into the only wrapper that wasn't candy striped. The quarter rolls were a plain old ordinary beige. The last girl that came to mind was Amanda. She was the greatest. The two of us were perfect for one another and probably would have gotten married. There wasn't anything extraordinary about the two of us together but then, that was what made everything seem so right all the time. There were plenty of Saturdays when we didn't get out of bed; instead content to just be. We went out for dinner but if we didn't, that was all right too. Had she not run out of money and been forced to move back home, I believe that we would still be together. It was as I dropped the last portrait of Washington onto the stack of others that I realized that the single roll of quarters I held in my hand was a lot like the way I felt about Amanda: what I had was great but more would have been all the better.

Looking at the new and organized stack of coins before me, I did some quick mental math and discovered that in my cup I'd held a little over forty dollars. The cup now sat empty and looked almost sad because of it, so I reached into my pocket for what change I had and deposited it as a start before heading back to the bank to exchange what I had for some crisp new bills.

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