LAST EDITED ON 10-22-13 AT 02:03 PM (EST)

I've spent most of the year trying to buy a Kindle Fire. (With the recent model upgrade, a Fire HDX.) I have failed miserably. And it's not my fault.

Whenever I save money for something frivolous, the universe seems to notice. And then it conspires to take that money away from me. I've had to financially bail out a couple of friends this year. Had unexpected repairs. Needed to go places and do things I normally wouldn't have to deal with. And every time it happened, the Kindle fund got wiped out. I never got further than 65% of the way along -- and I was going for one of the big ones, plus Prime membership, warranty, case, and keyboard -- before something happened, and then it was sigh and restart. I lost a month because I didn't have the strength to restart again and while I got past that, as soon as I began putting those pennies aside -- Summon Crisis.

At this point on the calendar, I have not totally failed, at least in the sense of saving. I have about 30% of the total locked away and no one can take it from me as cash because it's in the form of Amazon gift cards which I purchased for myself. But I won't make it by Christmas. No way, no chance. Attempting to do so would just make something explode.

And then I thought about Kickstarter and the various ways people ask for things on the Internet, plus whatever value I contribute to this community.

So here's what I'm asking for.

I would like every American RTVW member to send me one Canadian penny.

Each Canadian to contribute one Euro cent.

Every European to send a single yen.

I don't know what the @#$$ Spot's gonna do.

This, in terms of helping me purchase a Kindle Fire HDX, will do absolutely nothing. But at least the next time a crisis hits, I can throw useless pieces of metal at it until it goes away.

Optionally, please send me all your Chuck E. Cheese tokens so I can sidearm-skeeball my pain away. Thank you.

I am seriously waiting for the gift cards to be stolen.