Hannah Jones/Winonan

This is a story about finding what you’re looking for.

One day, over spring break, I was enjoying a dignified, productive respite from my hectic school life in the only way I knew how:

Sitting around in my pajamas and watching “Good Morning America” with a bowl full of at least five kinds of cereal.

You know, living the dream.

I was slurping down the last of my sugar-saturated milk when a commercial came on for a limited-time-only offer from Burger King: lattes for a dollar. I spat the last mouthful of milk back into my bowl and did a double-take at the screen. A dollar for a latte? Never had I seen such a gloriously cheap coffee drink advertised on television.

However good the deal was, I had trouble justifying the purchase right away. After all, a dollar was a dollar. That was a dollar that I wouldn’t have spent at all that day if I had followed through with my plan to stay in the house for 24 hours.

That was a dollar that could save me in a tipping situation or upon the appearance of a surprise tollbooth. That was a dollar that I wasn’t so sure I could part with for the sake of an extremely cheap, low-quality coffee drink.

It simply wasn’t sensible, I thought. (I took another sip of my Life-Cheerios-Cornflakes-Lucky Charms-Cap’n Crunch milk.)

And yet, I thought, I really, really wanted a Burger King latte.

I stood and rinsed out my bowl in the sink, deciding to let the great balance of the universe decide whether or not I would get my BK latte that day. I vowed that I would not spend a single cent of my own on something so trivial, nor would I borrow money from a friend or a parent. If the money turned up anyway, I reasoned, the latte was meant to be mine.
I started my hunt.

When you are looking for something, it is often you look somewhere out of sight. It’s a common assumption that whatever you wish to find must be hidden, waiting for those who go out of the way to seek them. I started my search for change with this rationale in mind.

I got on my belly and peered under refrigerators, furniture and doorjambs. I tossed away couch cushions and lifted rugs, looking for the slightest glint of metal. I found a few Hershey’s kiss wrappers and plastic beads in the process, but nothing of real value. I was beginning to get discouraged.

Then, I noticed the countertop. There, just on the ledge next to all the loose papers and scissors and tape dispensers, was fifty cents in quarters. It struck me that I hadn’t even seen them until now, even though I walked by that place every single day.

I found another quarter just on top of the kitchen table, nestled in a few napkins and a pile of mail. The next few cents I found after cleaning up a few wadded tissues that I really should have gotten to anyway. I revised my strategy, simply going around and tidying a little: removing empty soda cans, bits of trash and loose papers.

It was amazing how much money I found when I wasn’t actually looking.

Sometimes, finding what you need isn’t about looking hard. Sometimes it’s simply about clearing away the clutter, organizing your life and completing more manageable tasks while you bide your time. Sometimes, the answers come to us when we are thinking about something completely different. Sometimes, it is when we are not thinking at all that we think best.

I found about two dollars in change from my little hunt through the house, plenty for the drink and the tax. I got in the car later that afternoon and blazed to Burger King, beaming as I handed over my little jingling bundle of victory. They handed over my latte.

I resolved, driving away, to learn something from this episode of my life. Soon, spring break would end, and I would go back to school. When that happened, I would once again be faced with the brick-wall problems of graduation, job hunts, internships, majors, minors, portfolios and finding a bit more money than a dollar out there in the real world. When I looked at these problems from my current position, staring at all of them as they loomed in my future, they seemed impossible. Perhaps, however, if I continued to work, to grow, to learn and to stop every now and then for coffee, they would solve themselves in due time.

The coffee, of course, was terrible, but I drank every last drop.

Contact Hannah at [email protected]