Good Bye Pennies

There aren't very many common, everyday items I hate more than a penny. I've hated them for years. I have hated two pennies more than one penny, and three pennies more than two pennies, but there has always been a number, a tipping point where the pennies became tolerable due to their sheer numbers. For me, I think it has been approximately 10 pennies. I'd rather have ten pennies than no pennies. Of course I would quickly convert the pennies to a dime.

My hatred of the penny goes back to high school. In my high school, picking up a penny from the floor was considered very uncool. I was uncool enough without making matters worse, consequently I refrained from rescuing the wayward one-cent coin.

After my high school days, I went into the American work force. I bought a lot of snacks out of vending machines. Excluding the gumball machine, I know of no self-respecting vending machine that ever took a penny. Even when candy bars were a dime long ago, a candy machine would refuse a penny.

There is nothing so exasperating as feeling a hunger for an 85 cent bag of potato chips only to discover that the massive amount of change in your pocket is a quarter, four nickels, and six pennies. This happened to me a few days ago. I glared at those copper coins with hatred and frustration. They did not go back into my pocket.

Early this afternoon while at my workplace, I was pulling some keys out of a pocket when a couple of coins came out with the keys. I did not see the coins but I felt them land upon my shoe. Since they were not readily visible upon the floor, and coins being coins, I knew they had rolled under a nearby table. Not knowing the value of the escaped coinage, I decided to give a quick search under the table. After exploring around for thirty seconds or so on my hands and knees, I spotted two pennies. I immediately realized that I had lost a half minute of my life to two pennies, pennies which I did not bother to retrieve. To make matters worse, I hit my head on the underside of the table as I was backing out from under it. None of this modest tragedy would have transpired had my pockets been free of pennies.

At 1:06 PM today I made the decision to forever vanquish pennies from my person, automobile cupholders, and any other place where one or more pennies might be secured. From now on I will leave pennies in the change tray at grocery stores. Small numbers of pennies owed me will be charitably rejected.

I have quickly done the math and I figure if I live to be 95 (25 more years), and spurn all pennies until that time, I will be forfeiting approximately $4.62, depending on inflation. With a hatred like mine; it's worth the sacrifice.