Jesus, Mary, a Lion and a Piggy Bank

My 7 year old has been wanting a piggy bank. I’ve gotten into the habit of giving her my pocket change at the end of the day. She really likes the quarters with the states on the back, and she also likes using them at gumball machines.

We’ve tried all sorts of piggy banks. For a while  were using a “Noah’s Ark” piggy bank, but I think it broke or something. It had a rubber stopper at the bottom. Then my wife’s mom gave her a “Talking Piggy Bank” that would calculate how much money was in there, but you had to put the money in at the right angle and if you took money out, it didn’t subtract from the total. That kinda seemed like counter productive…we’re homeschooling our kids, and any opportunity to learn is taken, so if this thing counted her money for her, she wouldn’t get good at adding up her money.

We are currently using a cute little pink box that she can lock. She’s lost the key a couple of times but then found it again. I use the word “lost” loosely because I think my 4yo boy challenges himself to find the key and hide it in a different place.

So, this thing is not really a piggy bank. See, the piggy bank I grew up with, as I’m sure many of you did too, was one that did not have a hole to get the money out. I’m not sure when piggy banks started to be designed with holes in the bottom, but it sort of defeats the purpose.

You save money for a long time because you want skates or a Cabbage Patch Doll or a Star Wars Millenium Falcon or whatever, then one day you can’t stuff any more money into it, so you take a hammer to it. Then you find out you have just enough money…something like that.

I am assuming that why piggy banks started to be made with holes at the bottom was so either people could reuse the piggy bank, meaning that the ones without holes were not being bought anymore, or for collecting. I mean, really, if a piggy bank costs you $35 and the Muppet Show Lunch Box (the one with Dr. Teeth on the back) costs you $5, there’s a problem. (I used to have a Sesame Street Lunchbox, a Kiss Lunchbox and this Muppet Show Lunchbox…here’s a flash game I made where you hit me in the head with one…)

So, my family was out bike shopping at pawn shops and we stopped by the Appletree on Hwy 21 and Texas Avenue to use their bathroom, and up in the front area, there was a little store with those Mexican Decorative clay-ish statues. You know, they have Mary holding baby Jesus, they have a Bust of Jesus, a Lion, a cheetah, I think I saw Mr. Incredible and Dora the Explorer among others. “SE VENDEN ANGELITOS” is what the sign on the front of the shop said. (Little Angels for sale)

The shop is Packed full of stuff on the shelves, just like what you’d find in a border town shop. It was pretty authentic, I thought, with not much room to turn around and the cashier girl on her cell phone and the Tejano music blaring.

The statues made out of that resin stuff. I don’t know what it is. Some sort of clay stuff. I asked and the girl didn’t know.

Anyway, this is where I found the piggy bank we’re thinking about getting for my daughter. They had all colors, and a couple of sizes. The large one was around $8…and no hole on the bottom. It’s funny, the first thing my daughter did was look on the bottom for a hole. Once she saw it had no hole, she was like, “Oh, cool, you have to hit this one with a hammer to get the money out!”

So, there you go. Looking for a catholic statue or a statue of an animal, or maybe Mr. Incredible? Or maybe you need a piggy bank? Check this little shop out.

I might just end up getting her one of those State Quarter Collection Boards instead.