About once a year, Clark and I gather up all of our change around the house and set off to find a grocery store with one of those change machines. We usually get enough money to go out for a nice dinner. As we were pouring the change into the machine last week, I flashed back to a time in my past when I was all about saving money in a jar.
It was a Friday night in middle school. (We called it junior high in those days.) A bunch of us had met at the movies --it really didn't matter what was featured--we were there to see who else was there. Anyway, as the lights went down, and we settled back into our seats to watch (or talk in my case), one of my friends leaned over and said, "Did you know that you have a bump in your nose???" I was so glad it was dark, because I turned 10 shades of red. And of course I didn't know. It had probably grown that way the day before. You know how quickly your body changes during your early teen years, and you also know how self-conscious I was about my nose from that night on. My finger flew up to cradle the bridge of my nose, while I set my elbow awkwardly on the armrest of the theatre seat. I became an artist at trying to avoid my profile in any situation. All because of a snarky remark from a middle schooler. And that's the part of growing up that no one I know wants to revisit. I am sure that I had my own versions of snark as well; I just remember this incident because it happened to me and it became an obsession. I never asked anyone else if they noticed my bump because I was too embarrassed to set myself up for more humiliation. I would take a mirror and put it at different angles at a larger mirror to see how to hide my terrible imperfection. Make-up was not going to work here. And I couldn't do a comb-over in the middle of my face. I was doomed to ugly. I was giving Vanity a nod, and she was winning.
So what do you do when you are 13 and you are ashamed of your appearance? You save money in a jar for a nose job. That's what you do. And where do you keep the jar? You bury it in a brushy area next to the railroad track about a quarter of a mile from your house. Because if your mother discovered you were saving money in a jar, she would ask questions and then tell you that you were beautiful just like God made you and you would never make it to the first appointment of the plastic surgeon. So I kept the jar a secret except for my cousin, Grace, who would visit the site with me to add coins and bills.
The site where I kept the jar was a small overgrown thicket, but once inside, I could not be seen. I even found a tiny shovel hung on a branch, as though someone had left it there for me. I dug a hole just deep enough so that it was convenient to unearth when I was ready to add to the jar.
I think I added to my collection for over a year until I finally realized that my babysitting wages at 75 cents an hour were just not going to cover the price of a new nose. I also discovered that plastic surgeons in those days had limited "noses" to choose from, and the one size fits all theory was not going to work in my case. I just couldn't imagine having a ski lift nose on my face. So I gave up on the surgery idea, tried to talk myself into thinking that my nose wasn't so bad after all, and decided to shoot for a girls' summer camp fund.
The camp idea, too, was a little unrealistic after I found out how much camp cost, so I just decided to save the money for something I might need in my future.
Imagine my horror one morning when I looked out of my window and saw that the railroad company had set fire to the overgrown brush next to the railroad in order to keep it from growing onto the track. By the time I got dressed and ran to the tracks, I was disoriented because all of my landmarks were either in small piles or smoldering next to the track. It would seem like hours before I came across the tiny shovel that was stuck in one of the piles, so that I knew that I was close to my "burial site". I dug through the warm ashes, found the jar, and dashed home before the men working there could ask me any questions.
And what began as a quest for a change in my appearance ended up as a purchase of the iconic "Meet the Beatles" album. And besides, Ringo had a bumpy nose and he was the cutest thing ever!! A much better use of the nose jar indeed.
So what do you do when you are 13 and you are ashamed of your appearance? You save money in a jar for a nose job. That's what you do. And where do you keep the jar? You bury it in a brushy area next to the railroad track about a quarter of a mile from your house. Because if your mother discovered you were saving money in a jar, she would ask questions and then tell you that you were beautiful just like God made you and you would never make it to the first appointment of the plastic surgeon. So I kept the jar a secret except for my cousin, Grace, who would visit the site with me to add coins and bills.
The site where I kept the jar was a small overgrown thicket, but once inside, I could not be seen. I even found a tiny shovel hung on a branch, as though someone had left it there for me. I dug a hole just deep enough so that it was convenient to unearth when I was ready to add to the jar.
I think I added to my collection for over a year until I finally realized that my babysitting wages at 75 cents an hour were just not going to cover the price of a new nose. I also discovered that plastic surgeons in those days had limited "noses" to choose from, and the one size fits all theory was not going to work in my case. I just couldn't imagine having a ski lift nose on my face. So I gave up on the surgery idea, tried to talk myself into thinking that my nose wasn't so bad after all, and decided to shoot for a girls' summer camp fund.
The camp idea, too, was a little unrealistic after I found out how much camp cost, so I just decided to save the money for something I might need in my future.
Imagine my horror one morning when I looked out of my window and saw that the railroad company had set fire to the overgrown brush next to the railroad in order to keep it from growing onto the track. By the time I got dressed and ran to the tracks, I was disoriented because all of my landmarks were either in small piles or smoldering next to the track. It would seem like hours before I came across the tiny shovel that was stuck in one of the piles, so that I knew that I was close to my "burial site". I dug through the warm ashes, found the jar, and dashed home before the men working there could ask me any questions.
