It's about a foot long, 5 inches high and 3 inches deep. The plug is so dry rotted that I hate to remove it. The entire thing is painted blue-green rather than orange with black stripes, so that the stripes don't stand out. Its eyelids are gray, Lord knows why. It holds a red flower in its tail. I've had it for 50 years now. It's a ceramic tiger bank and I have no idea why it caught my seven year old eyes back in 1967.
There was a sale of some kind going on at old St. Dominic's Grade School. Everything available was on display inside a glass case outside the principal's office. I saw that tiger bank and I wanted it. It was two dollars and seventy five cents, a fortune to a little kid back then. For whatever reason, Mom was kind enough to give me the money for it.
It sat on her knick-knack shelf in the living room for years, but I used it as intended. I put my change in it, taking some out from time to time, oh, I don't know, when the ice cream truck was near or something. Soon after I got married it came down the street to my new house. It sat on a bookshelf next to my bed ever since and I'd kind of forgotten about it.
Until this morning. It caught my eye for the first time in ages, and it struck me how long I'd had it. I brought it down, brushed it off, and sat it next to the computer for blog inspiration; he's going right back upstairs when I'm done. I'm not ashamed to admit I have a tear in my eye as I hammer this out.
I guess this is my way of telling my kids, although I hope that they are hoping along with me that that day is a long way off yet, that one of them better take the stupid ceramic tiger bank for safekeeping. Someone needs to protect their Nana's investment.
If it's any extra incentive, there are still a few coins rattling around in it.
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