As a child, I was always in a hurry to grow up, go to college and experience all the freedoms of an adult. However, now that I am actually being forced to grow up, I am extremely reluctant to let go of my childhood — part of which I literally safeguard.
When my maternal aunt got engaged in 2016, my soon-to-be uncle gave both me and my sister gifts. My gift set included an entire Minions merch collection (water bottle, watch, keychain and backpack) and a safe. Yes, the kind you keep your money in.
Although the safe itself is gimmicky and cheesy, it is surprisingly functional. It features a coin slot and a very loud automatic bill feeder. The safe’s locking mechanism is controlled by a four digit passcode, which seems pretty sophisticated for a child safe, right?
Well, every time I press a number, my whole house can hear the piercing beep that follows, which makes it obnoxiously obvious that I’m trying to withdraw money. Not to mention that if I get the combination wrong, the programmed voice lets out a very loud “Uh-Oh!” which never fails to make me wince.
On the other hand, if I get it right, it plays a musical sequence as a celebration of my ability to type. The cherry on top is that when I turn the knob to open the little door, the safe plays a creepy creaking door sound — right out of your favorite slasher film.
All auditory irks aside, the safe holds a lot of importance to me and is tied to some of my most valuable memories. For example, I had a childhood obsession with Smiggle, which is “the ultimate creators of fun stationery,” and my paternal aunt was my main plug into the magical world of Smiggle. Smiggle stickers are still attached to my safe today as a fond reminder of my childhood.
Also on my safe are some cruder but more sentimentally valuable stickers like a wonky cut heart, very obviously made by someone lacking fine motor skills. When we were really young, my cousin and I learned how to make DIY stickers with tape and paper; I can still vividly remember our immense excitement in turning every drawing we could into a sticker.
In addition to some of my most wholesome childhood reminders attached to the safe, it also holds a lot of practical value. It inspired me to start saving all of my gift money at a young age, and I even started keeping logs for the money in my safe, annually documenting the amount held in the safe.
As of today, my safe holds a variety of currency from dollars to rupees to ngultrums (Bhutanese currency) — not including coins. Growing up in India, I saved a bulk of my gift money, hence the rupees, and converted most of it to dollars. After moving here in 2018, tutoring and gift money boosted my dollar worth. To encourage my interest in saving, my father often gave me any loose foreign currency he had. While most of these were in the form of coins, the pesos and ngultrum were stored as bills.
Even though it began as a cheesy gift to appease a child, the safe has proven to be surprisingly practical while also storing dozens of fond memories.
