I found a baggie of British coins in my things when I was packing at my parents’ house a week ago, and I put the whole thing in my backpack, figuring I’d use it all up when I got to England. It made my bag noticeably heavier, but no matter, it’ll all be gone soon, right?

Several pounds’ worth of pounds–get it?!

When I opened up the bag on the train into London, to count how much I had, I found that about two-thirds of the coins were from my first solo trip, when I collected coins from different European countries before the euro went into effect. Oops, that’s a lot of dead weight I’m carrying around.