Piggy Banks

On Fridays, I’m usually running around the house for some last minute cleaning before my weekend commute. I don’t like leaving house in a mess, as I don’t like coming home to a messy house. If time permits, I hurry a Friday Facts post because I won’t be able to do it when I’m there. Their computer has gone kaput for the past 2 weeks. But this weekend, Sweetheart and his best friend is off to 4WDing so I’m free to have weekends for myself for once!

I was so excited that my initial draft was up to 5 Microsoft Word pages! I had to sit back and start Zen-ing my posts. I sure don’t want readers to suddenly be bombarded with a 10,000 words essay in excited incoherent rambles. So I cut them up to pieces (the draft, not my readers) to be served in little, delicious, tiny bits. Like caviar on water crackers. Because I’m sure no one eats caviar on pita bread, si?

 

Remember piggy banks? When I was a little kid, it seems that for every birthday my brother and I will get coin banks. Someone will always come to the party armed with another ribboned coin banks. It doesn’t matter whether they come in pig shapes or not, we still call it piggy banks anyway. We had soccer shaped piggy, mushroom shaped piggy, house shape piggy, car shape piggy and etcetera etcetera. I only remember having one piggy bank that was a politically correct piggy bank.

 

In primary school, I was given 50 cents (about 14 cents USD) for lunch money . When you are younger and money doesn’t mean a lot, 50 cents is luxury. I’d spent 20 cents on one mini packet of nasi lemak. If any young Malaysians are reading this, yup! You read right! 14 years ago that’s how much a nasi lemak costs! Another 10 cent will get me two of those sour plum candies, leaving me an extra 20 cents everytime. I’d eat the rice during recess and keep the plum candies. When I get home, I give one candy to my eagerly waiting little brother, and eat the other one. I put away the other 20 cent into my first piggy bank. I remember it clearly: it was a house-shaped plastic with red roof. Even as a little tot, I was already a tot of established routine. I’m slowly beginning to feel pathetic…

 

 

We also had the ceramic variety. These are heavier and larger, thus requiring more time to fill it up. The problem with this type is that you have to break it in order to get the money out. Whenever a ceramic piggy is full, there is always a dilemma of whether to break it open or to pry the slot to get the coins out one by one. Usually the former is preferred in an attempt to preserve the figurine. But it is a tedious job and 5 minutes into, one is bound to give up. It’s not easy to hold up a heavy piggy bank which is already heavy empty because of its material, and now heavier from all the coins inside it. No matter how careful we are, more often than not we will end up breaking the piggy into half.

 

 

However, over the years we perfected the art of breaking clay piggies from watching heist movies. We’d take those durable tapes, tape an X several times over the bottom of the piggy. Usually in 4 layers. Then with a hammer knock gently but firmly at the middle of the X. There will usually be a small hole, just enough to get the coins pouring out. You peel the X off and you would get the clay shards easily out of the way. We have a few of those figurines lying about the house nowadays still, masquerading as decorations because who’d be crazy enough to pick up a clay rabbit and inspect its bottom?

 

 

One of my favourite blogger, The Frugal Law Student wrote a post on The History of Mechanical Toy Banks. The toy banks are really interesting! I wish those kind of coin banks were still produced nowadays, I’d love to have one of those. It’s kind of a rare novelty isn’t it? (P.S: Are the words “rare novelty” a redundancy? Anyone?) If it were still produced, I wonder how much it’ll cost? It’ll probably take up all the money in the coin bank and more to pay back for that very coin bank!

 

I don’t have a proper piggy nowadays. Anything that could hold and keep coins qualifies. I don’t like coins in my purse. From experience I learnt that storing coins in purses wear your purses faster than anything else. I now settle for beer bottles I collect from other people (since I don’t drink), orang juice bottles, pasta sauce bottles and empty small salad containers.

 

How cruel time passes by, I wish I was back to my innocent, piggy bank breaking little self!

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