Dollar Value — Abby Grifno

Dollar Value

Abby Grifno

Money has always had a way of finding me, or maybe I’ve always had a way of finding it. Just the other night, I was walking back to a bar where I’d left my scarf. There, on the sidewalk, was a dollar. My boyfriend thought it was a stroke of luck, but I was haunted by a hint of guilt. Someone, somewhere—maybe a few paces ahead or behind me—had lost their dollar, maybe their last dollar.

I remember having my first job when I was entering the 8th grade. I was working at a day camp—only five days—but receiving that paycheck, holding it, made me entranced. I don’t remember what I spent it on, but having the choice, truly my own, felt important. I continued working at that camp for several years, slowly working my way up, learning responsibility one role at a time. Since then, filing my W2s and searching for my bank information has become second nature. I make mental notes when I see hiring signs, spread the word casually in case friends are looking. I know what it’s like to be looking, to be too young or too inexperienced for every job you stumble upon. I also know poor planning.

There were times too when I lived beyond my means. That day I was headed to my internship and had only single digits in my bank account—almost no money for lunch. I couldn’t afford to eat out, didn’t have the ingredients to make anything, nor the planning to find a different option. I had resigned myself to skipping that meal, eating only dinner, when I would have the time to scrounge something up. Yet, when lunchtime rolled around, my stomach grumbled. I felt shaky. Skipping one meal, truthfully, is not a big deal, but it weighed heavy on my mind, as if I was literally starving myself. So instead I walked the half mile to McDonalds from the office so that I could order off their value menu, the dollar menu. I felt full, but pathetic. Shortly after that I picked up a second job.

I wonder how I would have felt if I had stumbled upon a dollar on the street back then. Relief, I imagine. But the worry surrounding money hasn’t truly abated—perhaps it never will, as my mother is the same—and neither has my entrancement with a dollar, my willingness to work the graveyard shift, the gravitational pull I feel to pick up more hours. So no, I didn’t leave the dollar on the pavement. And yes, it’s in my pocket as we speak. I will leave it there for now, let my jeans get washed and rewashed. So that maybe at some point, when I really need a dollar, I will search around my room, checking my purses and my clothes, and there it will be.