Being a piggy bank may seem like a cushy life. Sit on a shelf and be admired. Be fed regularly with nice shiny coins. Feel one's self worth increase as one's weight increases. Almost as easy as being a manager in a modern multinational company where the only thing you have to manage is what your superior thinks of you.

Alas the regularity of sitting on a shelf, and receiving offerings, may blind piggy banks as to their place in the grand scheme of things. The worshippers do not worship piggy banks themselves, they worship what they hope the contents of the piggy bank will lead to. The piggy bank itself won't share in what those jangling coins are jangling towards.

There will come a day when the coins put into the piggy bank will be removed from the piggy bank. And that will be a particularly sad day if the coins can only be removed by the dissolution of the piggy bank. As in the case of Virginia's holiday piggy bank.