Each conference the SCWC has a writing contest in which all conferees are invited to participate. The rules are simple: Write a piece in any form you wish of no more than 250 words based on the topic announced Friday night. The topic for the SCWC*PS 2 event was "Redemption". Dawn Huntley Spitz of Rancho Mirage, CA is this year's winning author.
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HOW THE HELL did I know I wasn't supposed to take $8.60 from the collection plate? Now you might wonder what a Jewish guy
from New York was doing in the Catholic Church anyway. It actually has to do with my being a Coke addict – Coca Cola that is,
not cocaine. I mean there is nothing quite as pleasurable as taking a swig from an ice cold can of the bubbly stuff that
chills and fires your gullet all at once. Four or five cans a day, my usual quota, can put you on a flying high. There's
just one problem, however. Five cans a day adds up to about 35 cans a week which is about 140 cans a month, which at 5
cents a can for the deposit adds up to about seven bucks more or less. That's money coming right out of your pocket unless,
of course, you can redeem those cans.
Now in New York we had these dandy little machines in the supermarket where you could take a month's supply of accumulated
cans and stick them one by one into the slot and then collect your seven bucks or so. Never mind that your hands got all
sticky from the sugar. Or that you might have to wait while the guy ahead of you redeemed a full six month supply of
empties. You knew you were getting your money's worth, even if you were only breaking even. But in California, I've never
seen these machines in the supermarket. Then somebody told me that they were redeeming cans at a trailer up behind Food for
Less. So I tried that. But they just weighed the cans which netted me only $3.25, a ripoff if I ever saw one. Then one
day, I saw a sign outside of this church on this sort of black billboard. It read: "Redemption, 10:30 a.m. next Sunday."
So I took all my cans to the church and when they passed the collection plate, I took what was due me and so I was arrested
for petty theft. What kind of redemption is that? They never even bothered to count the cans.
| Copyright 2005, Dawn Huntley Spitz. Used with permission. |
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