Ultimate Fate of a Christmas Jar

In the end, I gave mine to a car. I had changed the coins into cash and put the money in a Christmas card, along with an anonymous note explaining the whole Christmas Jar thing. The plan was to put it under the windshield wiper of a car belonging to a likely-looking recipient.

Since I had to go to Trader Joe's anyway, and since I occasionally see some faded old ladies in 1970's polyester shopping there, that's where I went first. I thought that kind of polyester--the bulletproof kind, not the slinky microfiber blend kind--would be a reliable tip-off as to need. Unfortunately those ladies weren't there. The problem kept getting more difficult, because with every candidate, I ended up second-guessing myself about why I thought that person might be needy. One can't assume, for instance, that a middle-aged, overweight, dowdy, depressed-looking woman is poor. Half of the Quilters' Guild of Indianapolis looks like that, and quilting, despite its humble origins, is no longer a poor woman's sport. The more I thought about it, the harder it got. I was really getting up-close and personal with a lot of my class prejudices. Finally I drove to the Wal-Mart and Dollar Store on Keystone, and found the perfect recipient. It was an ancient, rusty, beat-up car, with one door that didn't match the rest. There were little-kid toys in the front seat, but no car seat. It was in the remote reaches of the parking lot, so I imagine that Mom probably works for one of those horribly depressing stores. And I didn't have to focus on what I thought about the person at all.