Spare Change: The Results Show

After much fanfare and well over 300 guesses, I brought my change jar in for counting on Saturday. The person who's closest without going over wins a mental_floss t-shirt; second place wins free admission to our Law School in a Box.

This is all very exciting.

As a spill would have been disastrous, I took no chances on the way to Commerce Bank.

We arrived safely. "The change machine is out of order," a fellow customer told me on my way in. "Just kidding!" I did not laugh, as the prospect of counting these coins myself flashed before my eyes.

After approximately four minutes of dumping change into the Penny Arcade, my lovely assistant/wife hit the "End" button.

We learned the winning bid was much higher than we expected: $263.79.

That means the winning bidder, with a Kreskin-like bid of $263.17, is Dave R! Second place goes to Janet, who bid $257.37.

The oh-so-close award goes to Maeve, with a bid of $264.34. Had Starbucks not recently raised their prices by a few pennies, victory would have been yours. That's the kind of thing that would drive me crazy, so I'll use some of my change windfall to buy Maeve a t-shirt. Just email me to let me know which one, your size, and where I should send it.

One more thing. Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered.