25 cents

A quarter is a quarter.

They don't mean much when they are some part of price tags that go through my credit card.

There are only two occasions when 25 cents mean a lot to me.

Firstly, it is when I do my laundry. I take doing my laundry seriously and I prepare for it

throughout the week. 

I collect my quarters. I do not use them away.  Even when I am buying a candy that is like 75 cents, I would use my credit card.

I found another occasion today, when 25 cents seem so much to me.

As I lost my U-pass, I have been paying for the bus/train fares since the beginning of this week.

Today, I got on the bus without knowing that I only had $1.75 on my paid bus card. 

It was snowing outside so I gladly jumped into the bus and put my card in.

A bus driver, in his low voice tone, told me to step aside.

I was a quarter short to be a passenger on this bus.

Gracefully, he kept on driving while I was frantically searching for a quarter.

Of course I did not have any cash on me.

After driving 2 blocks away, the bus driver told me to take my card back. I thought he was letting this one pass and I was about to give him a nice smiley face. Then he told me to 

get off the bus at the next stop.

Oh my goodness. I was about to be kicked out of the bus.

My searching fingers got even more desperate, and luckily I found my little purse for coins.

It looked like I had a 10 cent coin, a 5 cent coin and bunch of 1 cent coins. 

I could not tell whether they make up a quarter or not, but I was too nervous to count them.

So, I threw all of them into the coin box. 

In that split seconds, I was pleading the bus driver to let me stay on the bus.

He did.

I sat next to this person, whose smell was unbearable to my nose.

Forgetting whatever that was on my mind before I found 25 cents, 

I started complaining again.

I hate riding a bus.