Tiffany called me at the crack of dawn about cashing in the Humberto Fund. Today was our last day to do this (the banks are closed over the weekend, and she's leaving on Monday morning for distant locales). So I dragged myself out of bed and trooped over to meet her, yellow plastic pig nestled in a bag under my arm.

At the bank, we waited in line until the teller finished discussing her outfit and cupping her own breasts. I had thought this transaction would be as easy as pie: dump the coins in a machine that counts and sorts them, then give us the cash. Right?

Wrong.

"You have to roll them," said the teller, shoving stacks of paper coin rolls through the partition. We needed only one-tenth as many and told her so. "You never know," she said. "How many coins do you have?"

I held the Humberto Fund aloft, and she stared, transfixed, for a moment before bursting into laughter. We grabbed the rolls we needed and trooped out.

I decided to find a CoinStar machine. This is a machine that, for a small commission, will count your coins and give you paper money for them. They are everywhere in Baltimore, so why not on the Upper West Side of Manhattan? I stopped a passing woman to ask for directions.

"A coin store? I have no idea."

"CoinStar. It's a machine that counts coins."

"I have no idea," she said and stalked off. We believed her. She looked like she had never seen anything less than a $50 bill in all her days.

Tiffany and I came back to my apartment and counted out the coins ourselves. The Humberto Fund came to a staggering $23.03.

I put the pig in the recycling bin. The end of an era.