My 500th Post Contest "Best Story"

Are these stories to be unpublished previously?

Do these have to be real life experiences? Or can we just make some stuff up?

Did I tell you about the time I got as hammered as a Double Leopard?

It was a dark and stormy night. We were waiting for the return of Timsumrall with the secret clues to the contest....

There I was, knee deep in mud...

well here is my story and if it done wrong I will just deal with it.
How I became a coin collector
I was working as a cashier at a corner convenience store, when along comes one of the semi-regular customers and places his stuff on the counter. I punch in all the prices and come up with the guys total. He hands over the cash and I open the register. I grab his change and see an overly shiny quarter. I pull it out and as I hand him his change I say "and 36 cents is your change here is a really shiny quarter for you". The guy looks at it and says wow thanks this is a proof quarter and is in really great shape too. Don't see them too often in change. I ask him information about it and he kind of just leaves without knowing too much. I know it was a 2004 S, possibly silver with just a gorgeous deep cameo look. I go home and look stuff up on the coin just mad at myself for giving away something that was worth money. I found out about roll searching and started checking my cash register each day as I counted my change. The anger of passing something like that up sparked my interest and gave me the push to start a collection. I went from cash register to 10 dollars of pennies and 10 dollars of nickels a week to taking out around a thousand dollars in coin boxes a week. All of the insanity was sparked by one little 2004 S quarter I gave away less than 3 years ago. If there was one coin I could have in my collection that would mean the most to me, it would be that coin from the guy I gave it too. I wanted to ask the guy if I could buy it off him when he came in but I never had the chance. Now I quit that job and probably will never have the chance again. I never let another coin like that pass through my hands at the register. It was a sad but epic day in my life
Chris

Great stuff, guys.

This story has been told here before, in slightly longer form (I had to cut, cut to get it to 500 words), and if repeating a story doesn't meet the spirit of the rules, the whole thing may get chopped. But here it is again, anyway.

"Into the Land Of the Little Swingers, Or, Betrayed By the Dime Chime"

The sun was out, the clouds were gone, and it was time to break out the Garrett 550 and coin-shoot at the local grade school again.

I headed for the swings, knowing that an upside-down kid at the apex of his swing was like a salt shaker: Loose pockets tend to emit loose change.

Sure enough, I dodged between dangling swings long enough to uncover a couple of quarters, two dimes, and a nickel and a cent and was about to uncover another dime when a shadow fell across my dig. I looked around me. There were four of them, swinging slowly in synchronism, and only one of me. Once again, I was outgunned. But I had my Garrett and they had their dimples. I knew it would be no contest. I sighed.

"What's that for?" A chubby little hand unclenched its forefinger, which pointed at the Garrett.

My day of collecting free money was as good as over. "Finding money."

Their tiny eyebrows rose slightly. The one wearing pink pedal pushers crossed her arms. "You're looking for money? How come?"

"Oh, just because."

Just then the Garrett betrayed me by chiming. The dime chime. I was doomed.

"What's that noise?"

"Oh ... it does that when it finds money."

Immediately the four were at my feet, on hands and knees, flinging handfuls of wood chips to the four winds.

I pushed the detector head amongst them until the dime chime set them off again, digging, grubbing, flinging, and finally one emerging with the dime shining between her finger and thumb.

"I found it! It's mine."

I agreed. What could I do? I was their captive, their slave, their swinging partner. The next fifteen minutes were a jumble of dings, flings, grubby fingers, but no dimes. The curly-headed one commenced to lead me around the wood-chip-covered area with one hand clamped firmly on the Garrett, pointing here and there for me to try for more dimes. Still nothing. Finally, I decided to try to escape with my life and sidled off to pick up my bucket (the chubby hand was STILL clamped firmly on the Garrett!).

But the worst was yet to come. One of them managed to find a quarter on top of the chips and demanded that I check it out to see if it was real. I did; it was. Two with money. Two without. Out of my bucket came two dimes I'd found earlier; into two chubby little hands they went. They were satisfied; I had managed to buy them off and escape, and off to my car I went.

And then ... the final blow. From behind me floated a plaintive "I love you!"

I knew then that I was forever their slave. I'd be back. After all, I'd scanned only half of the swing set area. That was the ONLY reason I'd have to return, right? Some day. Soon.

Please forgive me, I was coins out of pocket :)

I guess you could make it up.
Re-published is fine.
You can write about what you want but...

It's the scoring section that will help you win.

1. The Relevance
2. The Uniqueness
3. The Telling