It pays to take chances

This is my first blog since graduating. You'd think that doing a blog I'd have an entry about graduation, being on my own, the scary fact that life is right there staring me in the face, but I'm not. Not yet at least. This is me flushing all the boring scientific writing styles down the toilet and enjoying actually writing for fun before I start all over again in January.

"It pays to look down." My friend's dad tells us as he bends down to pick up a penny at the gas station we're at. I laugh. My friend rolls his eyes. So with respect to Mr. Taylor I'm changing his phrase just a little bit. It pays to take chances.

I relearned this powerful idea the week before graduation from my best friend Nathan. We had gone to a Family Force 5 show in Chattanooga earlier in the week and Nathan owed me for the ticket. It would have been easy to just pay me the money but playing a game of chance sounded funner to Nathan. When I met him to get the money he looked at me and held up a giant bag of change. "Well, you can either have the $20 or THIS!" he said grinning, shaking the bag at me. "There might be $25 in here or only ten bucks! Which do you want?" I took the bag of change.

Later that day after work I took my giant zip lock baggie of change to the Wal-mart to the change machine. Blocking the entrance was a lady in a Santa hat ringing a bell beside a pot of change. Fearing she'd see what would be her biggest customer of all time I jammed the change into my hoodie and shuffled past her, looking anywhere but her direction.

I dumped the bag of change into the change machine. Half the bag filled up the tray. Clanging loudly the change emptied into the machine. The small red numbers in front of me began moving up. $1, $5, $17 When it reached $20 I began to smile. I hadn't even used half bag and I had 45 dollars! $85 later I was a VERY happy guy.

That evening I got a text from Nathan. "How much was in that bag anyway?" "85 dollars" "What!?!?! Your lying. Uhhhhhhhh! I knew I should have kept it."

I gave him $20 as a peace offering. The truth is I had no idea there would be that much in there. I just thought it would be a fun thing to do. Just don't tell Nathan.