When an 11 year old comes in and asks how old you have to be to work here, you know you are doing something right. I didn’t tell him then and there what a struggle life as an artist is, of course, but then again, I don’t think he realized I am one. He probably just thinks I am a really cool repair guy. Good for me.

Since the gallery wouldn’t let me take him in as an assistant on the spot (it all used to be so much easier in Tom Sawyers’ days, back then you didn’t really need parents permission, safety standards and pedagogical licences), at least I wanted to make him participate in the game. So I explained the conditions and asked if he had something broken on him he wanted to hand in. And no, re-making his iPhone was probably an even worse idea than letting him work in the repair shop. After having kindly refused that one, Emmanuel pulled up a few loose coins from his pocket, asking, “can I give you these ones?” It was three dimes and three cents.

“What’s wrong with them, how are they broken?” I challenged him, perhaps boringly insisting on the rules I had set up, but he was undaunted. In two seconds flat he answered, “You can’t buy anything for them.” Which, I had to grant, was true and also a very good reason to fix them. What can you get for 33 cents nowadays? It used to be, clever people said, “if you put a dollar in the bank when you are 10, you will have a million by the time you are 70.” Perhaps that was true in the golden era before they realized we have waaay to much money in circulation already, so that nobody is prepared to give you even a positive interest on your savings any more. And even if they would, which bank would even let you in through their doors if you just had nickels to deposit? No, these brave portraits of Abe and Frank were truly useless, as money anyway. But maybe some of the hopes and dreams of all those people who had handled them could rub off a bit, and some of the luck from all those larger bills they had spent time together with in wallets and pockets? They say that giving gifts means luck, and since he gave me the coins, and I then gave them back, they should be double lucky. I decided that what Emmanuel needed if he was ever going to multiply his monetary assets in the future, despite our generation messing it up for his, was luck. So I made him a lucky dice.