LIFE:
AN EMBARRASSING MOMENT THAT HELPED TO SHAPE ME
I am reminded of a distinct time in my life when I had access to a four-gallon plastic water bottle half filled with pennies.
This memory revolves around the first room I rented without a dime to my name, while living in California. I had only been in the US a few months after migrating from Jamaica, having emerged from a bad situation in which I had found myself sleeping on the floor at the Salvation Army in Compton. I found the room through a referral to a cousin of a fellow lady volley ball player at the Salvation Army facility where I was staying.
Upon entering the room I noticed a bottle just like this, half filled with pennies. My landlord did not care about these pennies, so that was the only money I had access to.
After a few days of trying, I received a day job in Los Angeles, some 10 miles away. The job started at 8 a.m., so I left my room at 6a.m., in order to catch the bus. The only thing I knew at that time, as a new immigrant to the US, was that I had money (pennies). I packed enough pennies in my pocket from that water jar and headed out.
As I stepped on the bus most persons ahead of me dropped a bus tickets or silver coins into the hopper to pay their fare. I stepped up on that first day of work and dropped seventy nine pennies (79c) in the machine. “Ching- gilling-gilIing” was the loud sound as the pennies travelled to the bottom of the hopper. I painfully remember the driver staring me down and with a weird expression on his face. The sound of the pennies falling seemed to have awakened everyone on the bus. Only then did I realize that something was wrong. I hurried to the back of the bus, avoiding the intense stares of my fellow passengers.
The pennies were not enough to buy a complete lunch, but I had enough to take me back home. Fate would have it that the same driver was operating the bus. It felt like deja vu! The driver seemed a bit upset after the pennies fell in the hopper and I hurried to the back of the bus, again avoiding the stares. I was quite self-conscious, but I had no other option. I kept wondering about the next morning. After all, I had to get to work and pennies were all I had.
Next morning I woke up, headed out to work, a bit fearful of the stares I would receive once I dropped the pennies. I got on to the top step in the bus, and it was the same driver from the previous day. However, this time he was staring at my hands.
As I was about to drop the seventy nine pennies into the hopper he stopped me. “Hold up! Hold up!” he said. “No more pennies! Ride free, even though my boss will not like this.“ I got a free ride each morning for a week. This bus driver and I developed a few months of friendship until they changed his route.
Oh! BTW. I started purchasing bus tickets after the first paycheck.
