We are moving into our first purchased home next week (post forthcoming, naturally there is autistic-like apprehension about a move from the only home Curt has ever known ) and convinced Curtis this would be a great time to take his coin "collection", weighing in at 65 pounds, to the bank.
I called the bank yesterday morning and told them I'd be bringing my son to the bank with more than $600 in rolled coins. It seemed appropriate to give them a heads up and I had a feeling they might not want the rolled coins as is in case some were short or over the correct amount. The bank employees deliberated for a bit before deciding it would be best to unwrap the coins and dump them into their Coinstar machine. Members don't get charged a fee to use it so we were in business.
After about 35 minutes of unwrapping the coins and dumping them into a large tupperware container, we loaded them into the car.

On the way to the bank, the seat belt alarm rang roughly every 90 seconds, understandably thinking there was a person next to me in the passenger seat. Ding*Ding*Ding* Ding* Ding. We arrived at the bank for what I thought would be about a half hour of dumping coins into the machine. Clearly, I overestimated the machine's ability to take on Curt's massive collection. We kinda kicked the machine's ass.
Naturally, we were a bit of a spectacle during our 90 minutes in the bank. Employees watched as we dumped bucket after bucket of coins into the machine. Moms told there kids they could have that much change one day too if the saved it instead of spending it. Others just raised their eyebrows. Curtis was behaved the entire time. After an hour, I was growing a little frustrated.
We filled up bags of coins in the machine and the credit union employee couldn't have been nicer about helping us when bags filled or their were jams. But at one point, the machine just stopped taking pennies for reasons the employee couldn't figure out. The machine wasn't jammed and had been cleaned. For a 10-15 minute span, it was doing nothing but spitting our coins back at us. After 90 minutes and $590.51, we quit, with one large bucket of coins to go.
We started a savings account for Curtis with his proceeds and he was rewarded by the teller with a stack of stickers, declaring him "the best behaved kid ever." When asked what he planned to do with the money he said he was going to save it to buy something special. "I'm going to buy a Subaru when I'm older. A red one."

Greg, Dad

**UPDATE**


All coins entered. $621.31 in savings. Go Subaru. This is Portland, ME, after all.

The answers to a recent interest inventory Curtis took at school

1.) My favorite kind of pet- Bunny
2.) I am really good at- Art and Math
3.) I collect- Coins
4.) Something I really like to do is- Draw Roads
5.) I take lessons in- Swimming
6.) Something you should know about me- My favorite color is red and I have autism.
7.) The worst show on T.V. is- Baseball
8.) I read books about- Big Nate, Animals, Science
                                                                                 9.) The food I really hate is- Carrots
                                                                                 10,) The best tasting foods are- Red Peppers, Apples, Sour Pickles, and Watermelon.

Curtis

Curtis' coins more closely resemble a hoarding than a collection. While he has cooled in his pursuit of coins in the last half year, he does still hit up family members for change and does well at Nana's house on the weekend. He keeps an open roll of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters on a shelf in the living room and marches a finished roll up to a box in his room too heavy to lift. He then adds the sum of the new contents to the last figure on the sheet for a new total. So far there is still no intended use of the proceeds as he expects to never cash any of it in for any reason, ever.

Greg, Dad

Along with the survey, Curtis also filled out a worksheet on what he can and can't do when he grows up.

I will be able to

A.) Tie my shoes
B.) Watch inappropriate videos (because swearing is just so funny)
C.) WIpe my own butt

I won't be able to

A.) Ask for help tying my shoes
B.) Cry in a Store
C.) Order off the kids menu!