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12/1/1995

"Never was heard such a terrible curse!
But what gave rise to no little surprise,
Nobody seem'd one penny the worse!"
Reverend R.H. Barham

BLASPHEMY:
I hate pennies. The only thing I use pennies for is to avoid getting other pennies. I'll get rung up at a random cash register and it inevitably comes up as some odd amount and I feel like it's saying "HA! You can't ever buy things and end up with a handy even number. Now you'll get punished with PENNIES!!" I scramble like mad to find some pennies of my own as a counter-move, trying to outfox the cashier and avoid that handful of useless copper. You'd have to carry around several tons of pennies in order to have enough funds to purchase anything at all. They're just not practical. Machines won't take them, why should I? Nickels are nearly as bad. Dimes are OK - they're small enough to remind you that they're valueless alone. Yet every time I mention getting rid of pennies I hear "Oh my god! THEN what??" "Just round up or down to the nearest nickel, or better yet the nearest dime." I reply. "Everything would become expensive! Businesses would always round up in prices!" the penny-grubbers answer. "No, they'd still be in competition with eachother for the lowest prices and everything would stay the same in relation to everything else." I say, while thinking "I don't care as long as I never see another penny again as long as I live." I've resorted to sorting my change box, pennies go into a big jar I'll hurl at some economist some day, and useful change goes where I can get to it. Or maybe I'll start keeping the jar in my car and give handfulls of pennies to the local panhandlers, though they too despise pennies from the reaction I've gotten the last several times I've tried this stunt. The peso eventually became useless and they lopped off three decimals from the face of the bills and coins. I wonder what it'll take before the U.S. gives up the sentimental feeling for the penny and does the same.


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