Last month, we announced the Great Annual Change Bowl Guessing Game. Well, as you can see above, yesterday we all finally went to our friendly local TD Bank for their big, no-charge change counting machine. We clogged it up a little! Also we annoyed the hell out of the staff. Also we took free lollipops. Yay TD Bank. And so we have a winner for the guessing game, though y'all were nowhere near close. Don't you all have big change bowls?
In the end, the guess of $368 was closest without going over, though you will see from the video above that, holy smokes, it was much more than that. Congratulations to Awl commenter #1292, Mle, who will be notified via email. (Duly noted: one commenter guessed "the price of a Marc Jacobs man purse"; a quick review of Marc Jacobs man purses revealed that you can get one of those for $248 on Zappos (ew!) or for $199 on Bluefly. Bullet dodged.)
What did we all learn here? That visualizing scale is hard on the Internet! And that people are bad at guessing. Also that you should never throw away so much as a penny, because that bowl is buying us me lunch for the next month. Now, if I just had some more change bowls, I could pay rent too! Whee.
THE PILE OF SWEATERS IS ALIVE NOW
THANK GOD. I've been sick with worry.
I LOVE DUMPLING MAN!!!
You're with me, Leather.
Yay! Sports!
Whoa. $368?!
Suddenly, blogging looks like a lucrative career option.
Oh, ha, stupid me, I finally watched the video. Very impressive, guys. But I'm disappointed you didn't make a guess. You could've won a free water bottle!
Balk, is that your voice? Are you Brad Garrett?
Don't bother watching, you guys. Neither Balk nor Cat make an appearance.
Cat totally does!
CAT DOES! He's at the end.
Balk is a vampire. (A sexy vampire.) He's invisible. Except for his forearms, and voice.
Where the hell is your HQ located? Did you just set up shop in the lobby of an abandoned motel?
Wait, I see your forearms and Mary's (right?). I do not see forearms identifiable as Balk's. TEASE ME
More Stephen Dorff / less Max Shreck?
He's Dr. Claw I KNEW IT!
Unless we get a coinage breakdown, I don't buy it.
There were a shitload of quarters.
See, I never build up a substantial quarter strata - I always use them to buy my coffee in the morning or a tall boy at the bodega in the bottom of my building.
What is your quarter-retention secret, good sir?
Who are these people who do laundry without quarters? Is blogging really lucrative enough to pay someone else to wash your clothes?
They must have been hidden at the bottom. Al I saw were a whack of pennies.
No one washes his own clothes in New York City.
Except like, REALLY poor people. It's just not cost-effective in an hours-v.-money scenario.
Agreed with Choire. Laundry gets outsourced almost as soon as you move to the city.
And what, no one has washer/dryers in their apartment? Is there a law or something?
Thanks for making me feel bad for washing my own clothes AND scrubbing my own toilet. I must be the last person in NYC to do that.
You are not the last person in NYC to do so. Nor are you the last attorney in NYC to do so. Solidarity!
You guys were robbed. There is totally an arbitrage trade in quarters. Just meet some actualy laundry-doing poors.
Do I get anything for guessing there were 40 British pence in there?
I too have a pathological inability to spend change (or "metal money", as I call it).
I generally save it, squirreled away in various dark corners of my apartment, until I have to move to a new apartment. The thing is, I've paid for three consecutive moves entirely with pocket change, including the tip for the movers!
I once got bored at work and counted my change so I could win the prize for guessing and it turned out the be a foam football with the commerce bank logo. I don't know why I assumed it would be something more exciting.
oooooooh do i get a foam football?
I like how you took charge of the situation Mary.
I like it a lot.
Has it already been discussed how The Awl is an anagram for Wealth? Also: I am bored
OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Huh. That's strange. I can't seem to find you guys on this map: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108368299236267247709.000468b6f60d9b962dad0&ll=40.754279,-73.948288&spn=0.105849,0.30899&z=12
How long had that accumulated? I have about 10 years of change sans quarters.
How many cigarettes/handles of Wild Turkey does that sum get you on the island of Manhattan these days?
I demand a recount. You had a hanging cha-ching.
This is the week I discovered that me from last spring left me from right now $16 in his windbreaker. Thanks me!
You guys have voices! It's so odd to hear them.
Balk! You sound kinda like The Bat Man.
All day today, I've just been transcribing tapes of phone interviews I did with analysts for my job ... and you know what?
Choire's voice sounds like mine. It's a little eerie, actually.
You should put that $600 away in an awl.com "rainy day" fund.
But you won't, I'll bet. You two are going to spend it all on one big drugs-n-drinking binge this weekend, aren't you?
Ok, first, I thought the bowl was waay smaller than that. Also, the people at TD are too damn friendly, like you want to either french them or punch them, I don't know.
PLUS THEY'RE PREGNANT
WAIT A MINUTE.
Are we to believe that the change bowl has not accumulated a penny more since the contest was originally announced and guesses were logged? If I had bothered to make a guess then, I would be outraged now.
As it is, I AM DRUNK.
Would you fucking go to bed??
Or, do I mean, go to bed fucking?
Does anyone have $600 I can borrow to feed the cat?
There really isn't anything else for you, is there?
That bank totally gave you guys extra money. I mean because wait let's say even just $400 of that was in quarters. Am I drunk or is that 400 * 4 or 1600 quarters which are supposed to have been in that bowl?? Shitload's shitload.
P.s. Mary! I have hitchhiker thumbs too! BEST RECESSIVE TRAIT EVER
Wait, this quarter theory makes sense. Something's amiss here.
Change-Bowl-Gate! Call in the special investigators! I nominate that guy at Coney Island who guesses your weight and age.
YOU PEOPLE ARE LOONS. GO BACK TO YOUR "9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB" WEBSITE.
I would've gladly taken that bullet.
/Gets macbook air joke a week later. :(