Coffer: (n) a cashbox

Old-fashioned words, at least to me, often sound creepy.

“Coffer” is one of them.

It always conjures images from Edgar Allen Poe. For those of you who don’t know who he is, he was a drug-addicted writer of macabre stories, back … really, when everybody who was a writer was drug-addicted.

For instance, I can’t think about “pit” without thinking of “pendulum.” One of his stories. And I know this–nothing good is ever going to happen at a pit. And a pendulum is certainly going to knock you over.

Meanwhile, back at coffer…

A coffer conjures the image of a wealthy man, sitting and counting his coins as the thief breaks in behind him in his study and kills him, and his eyes bulge out and he squeezes his coins and then his hand releases them and they fall to the ground. The murderer chuckles, grabs the coffer and hurries away–the style of the running steps somehow resembling a Hungarian dancer.

Maybe I should stop writing this before you get worried about me.

Let me put it this way–just in case “coffer” is creepy, I don’t have one.

I have a wallet and a bank account.

Try to make something sinister out of that.

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