SONG OF THE DAY: Money Tree

I had a money tree once. It was pretty neat, in the spring time, when it would blossom with brand new shiny copper pennies. I’d get so excited, and have to tell the kids not to pick them, not to eat them because they’re poisonous, and to wait and let them ripen. They’d turn into dimes when you left them, and that too was so exciting, but again, you had to wait. I didn’t know how money trees were though, and the first few springs I lived with one, it’d turn to dollars almost overnight, and I’d wake up and think, “Oh wow, I’m gonna get all those dollars when I get home from work today!” I worked construction then, so usually didn’t get home until 7 or so, and by the time I got home, the birds had picked all the dollars off the money tree before I got any. After two or three years of that, I realized, I had to be ready, and I’d sit there in the evening, watching the money tree’s nickel and dime blossoms, hoping they’d turn to dollars, “trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents” literally. But the birds knew about the money trees before me, always, these predatory birds I never saw who always swooped in when the dollars blossomed and snatched it all up before I could get any. I’d wake up, and see the nickels and dimes in the morning, waiting for it all to mature. But then one morning it was all gone, maybe a couple torn overripe dollars laying on the ground for me to pick through, the trickle down from the predatory harvest, for me to try and get half a handful of that taste. I always wonder what it tastes like too, to have an actual money tree pie, not just a few rotten dollars that fall to me. I imagine it tastes wonderful, but I honestly have no idea. I’ve heard stomachs like mine can’t even handle it. I’ve tried making pie with the nickels and dimes too. It tastes okay I guess, but this can’t be what they mean. Not sweet at all, no richness, bland dreary slice of pie that fills my belly with a sort of sustenance, I guess, but I still feel hungry, and lacking, all the time.