like loose change

[Orion Montoya]

>From http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/nyregion/10montclair.html:

"People think of Montclair as a picture-perfect, 'Brady Bunch'-type
setting," said Ricky Moore, a 42-year-old street cleaner, who was
sweeping up cigarette butts from the sidewalks of the town's grittier
side on Saturday. "But this neighborhood is ghetto. You got
14-year-old girls walking around here in little miniskirts like loose
change."

I'm reading it as "walking around in little miniskirts like it's
nothing."  Has anyone seen this before?  I can fathom "like loose
change" in a context of not being parsimonious with a resource that
others may value highly, or of being careless, but I'd never think it
could be so elliptical as this.  At first I thought it was modifying
their miniskirts, then the girls themselves, but the only way I can
make sense of it is to attach it to their walking.

"While the hapless Colorado Rockies lost games like loose change, the
Marlins rarely surrendered without a fight"
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/1993-07-21/metro2.html