Bradie and I normally buy a 75 centime baguette and share it together for lunch on our walk to the art school every Tuesday and Thursday, but somehow today we both forgot our wallets. We rifled through the bottoms of our schoolbags and came up with exactly 71 cents. Damn. Sure, we could go without our baguette, but it would suck.... we didn't eat before our three hour art class last time and it was a TERRIBLY long class (it's the only thing we eat since breakfast, and the only thing we have until dinner). So the solution seemed easy. We'd walk down the streets with our heads down looking for a spare penny or even a dime that someone dropped, just like you always see when you walk down the street at home. We walked. And walked. And walked. Not a single penny appeared...not in the gutters, not by the busstops or behind/underneath vending machines. We walked for almost a mile and still not a single centime. Could you imagine that on the streets of Champaign or Crystal Lake? There would be SURE to be at least a single nickel somewhere.
The art school is about a 30 minute walk (sometimes for Bradie and I it's a 45 minute walk!) away from the regular school in town where we leave from. We got to the last little bread shop stop before the art school and still had exactly 71 cents. We looked in the shop and couldn't afford anything...not crackers, not candy, not anything with that amount of money. Should we ask someone to spare 5 centimes? We were hungry and we didn't have enough change to buy the cheapest thing in the store, a loaf of bread. We sat on the curb outside the shop not wanting to admit defeat. We sort of laughed at our situation. We laughed at France for being so expensive that if anyone drops a penny they immediately pick it up because you need every centime you can get. After ten minutes or so we spotted some students headed up to the art school and asked them if they could spare five centimes. Peter pulled out a fistfull of change, and to me his hand glittered of gold--he was rich! He must have had 15 bronze little dimes in his hand...that could buy two baguettes--imagine. The two of us happily skipped back to the shop with our five new centimes and bought a baguette to share for the walk to the studio. It was delicious. And delightfully filling.
Bradie burped the rest of the way to class.
