What is a vomit quarter? I didn't even know until I discovered one on a beautiful, breezy, sunny Saturday afternoon on Nov. 19.

I was at work. Yes, at work on a Saturday. I was getting in a few extra hours because I had left early on the previous day (for a good reason). Anyway, at work was I. Tyson was there too. Though a bit frazzled from added responsibilities at work, Tyson seemed to be in a good mood. I sauntered outside, taking a brief break from my programming. There was Tyson cleaning up an unusually trashed parking lot.

"Dude, what happened here last night?" I asked. "Dunno, man," Tyson responded without looking up as he continued picking up the bottles, cans, and other trash objects with his latex gloves.

Apparently, some random vagrants had enjoyed some sort of gathering in our small parking lot some 12 hours earlier. As I looked around, I noticed a pretty respectable puddle of vomit. It sat flat on the pavement like a firework frozen in the sky. Curiously centered amid the dried remnants of someone's chymey, rejected meal was a quarter. A quarter!

Now, let me tell you. If it was a dime or a nickel or certainly if it was a penny, I would have easily continued back to my script inside. But it was a quarter! How could I just leave it lying vulnerably on the street? I couldn't. I wouldn't.

Don't worry. I didn't touch it. I looked around for some makeshift tweezers, and to my great delight, I found two small twigs not too far away from the site of the unpleasant incident. Carefully, so very carefully, I deftly snatched up the quarter in the inescapable grip of my twigzers. Tyson flashed an understandably incredulous look at me.

"What?! Dude, it's a quarter!" I explained.

Back inside, I began the cleansing process. I carefully placed the specimen on a saucer as if I were a surgeon depositing a removed shard of shrapnel onto a metal plate. A little hot water, antibacterial soap, a nice soak, and some scrubbing later, I was all of 25 cents richer.

Where will I spend my newfound riches? If history is any indication, I will probably end up using my vomit quarter to help fund a game of cut-throat at Double Dave's with my little pals Zac and Blake.

The real question, however, is this. How did the quarter find itself amid human vomit? Was the quarter already on the pavement when the vomiter spewed his stomach's contents directly upon it? Was the quarter somehow placed into the center of the vomit later? Or, perhaps more unexpectedly, was the quarter actually a part of the vomit itself—or even the cause? We may never get to the bottom of this terrible mystery...

The Vomit Quarter


The Vomit