Some friends of ours were having their four-year old son baptized last Saturday, at our local Catholic church. We were looking forward to it, it was a family affair, and personally? I am thrilled to share religious services at all churches, temples and synagogues with the girls. It’s that whole ‘keep an open mind thing,’ you know?

But the real question was: what do we bring? For their son? A religious item? I didn’t think that would be appropriate. It seems odd for a non-Catholic to present rosary beads to a Catholic, doesn’t it? And anyway, that’s what grandparents and godparents are for. A savings bond? First of all, I read somewhere that it’d be thirty years before he could cash it in, and second of all, they are new friends, so I didn’t think a savings bond would be all that appropriate. Money? Uh, I don’t know about you, but I don’t enjoy giving cold, hard cash as a gift. It just seems rather impersonal to me. “Oh, I didn’t have time to think about what you might enjoy, what would be so you, so here you go. Have a twenty.” And toys? For a baptismal gift? No. Toys? They are for Christmas, for Hanukkah, for birthdays.

So, I emailed my friend S, who is married to a devout Catholic, to ask her what I should do? She emailed me back, telling me she’d ask her husband, but not to worry. We’d figure something out. And she used ‘we’ because we were all invited to the same event. She was, apparently, in the same boat as I was. What do you get a 4-year old for his baptism?

And then, I had an idea. Something educational. And with a value, at least to a little kid. Oh, and retro. Which in a ‘toy’ is always cool with me. And really, it’s not that retro that you might not remember it… And it’s not really a ‘toy,’ even if that is how Amazon chooses to ‘tag’ it… the Uncle Sam Register Bank. I had one as a kid, in black. Did you? Didn’t we all? The children of the seventies? They make them now in quite the color selection, and for the lucky little guy who was due to be on the receiving end last Saturday, we went with the red (Pea’s choice, after convincing her that no, a little boy was not going to want the pink one). But it wasn’t just the bank, no. I was going to fill it up with some money. Some cold, hard… coins. Because the premise of the Uncle Sam bank is that you can only put in coins, and after the first 25-cents is dropped in, the bank locks, and you can’t open it and retrieve your savings until it hits $10.

So, then? Friday afternoon? The day before the baptism? My friend S calls me to let me know that 1) she’s in Salt Lake City and has some time to get to the shops and 2) she has an incredible idea for a gift for the lucky little guy… Are you ready? Baited breath, and all? A bank. A savings bank. Filled with some money. No kidding. Seriously. I kid you not.

So, after a quick giggle, I informed her that 1) great minds really do think alike (I think she’s pretty great), and 2) that I’d already ordered a bank, an Uncle Sam bank, no less. And had the same exact idea, to throw some coins in it to get things going for the lucky little guy.

In the end, we went in on the gift together, her family and mine, along with another friend of ours. I supplied the bank, they supplied the coinage. But while Pea was decorating a card for the lucky little guy, I was making a separate little gift bag for him, one that was to be secondary to the larger gift bag, which contained the Uncle Sam bank. And this second little gift bag? S was going to fill it up with coins. After all, the biggest satisfaction of the whole thing is filling up one’s own bank, right?