Feel Free to Play Along at Home
A lifetime of pennies. How much could that be worth? Pennies that had been saved from the time before my brain was capable of forming permanent memories—from so long ago that the crumbling paper rolls read “50¢.” (Has anyone noticed that modern keyboards don’t even have the ¢ symbol anymore? And as far as I can tell it doesn’t appear in Word’s palette of symbols and special characters.)
And so, off to the Penny Arcade, operated by the kind folks at Commerce Bank. Free to all, including non-customers like myself, as opposed to the usurious Food Emporium down the street, where the Coinstar Center charges 8.9 cents on the dollar. As if the 8 weren’t bad enough, but come on: .9?
Penny Arcade also gives you the chance to guess your total. If you get it right, you win a prize. Tempting, yes, but the line of six longsuffering people behind me sent the strong signal I should just get on with it, given that my pennies filled up much of a 4"X8"X9" wooden box, a 24-ounce Mott’s applesauce jar (does Mott’s still make applesauce?), plus the few dozen paper rolls, each holding 50¢. My backpack has never been so heavy.
My attempts to apologize to the kind woman who empties the Arcade left me feeling both relieved and unreasonably hopeful. I was nothing, it seemed, compared to the guy who came in with three thousand dollars worth of coins. Three thousand dollars! Visions of slot machine jackpots danced in my head.
How much is a lifetime of pennies worth? A hill of beans would be significantly more valuable. When I took my receipt to the teller, she handed over all of $52.63, in two twenties, a ten, two quarters, a dime and—thus we start again—three pennies.
Tomorrow: the nickels.
And so, off to the Penny Arcade, operated by the kind folks at Commerce Bank. Free to all, including non-customers like myself, as opposed to the usurious Food Emporium down the street, where the Coinstar Center charges 8.9 cents on the dollar. As if the 8 weren’t bad enough, but come on: .9?
Penny Arcade also gives you the chance to guess your total. If you get it right, you win a prize. Tempting, yes, but the line of six longsuffering people behind me sent the strong signal I should just get on with it, given that my pennies filled up much of a 4"X8"X9" wooden box, a 24-ounce Mott’s applesauce jar (does Mott’s still make applesauce?), plus the few dozen paper rolls, each holding 50¢. My backpack has never been so heavy.
My attempts to apologize to the kind woman who empties the Arcade left me feeling both relieved and unreasonably hopeful. I was nothing, it seemed, compared to the guy who came in with three thousand dollars worth of coins. Three thousand dollars! Visions of slot machine jackpots danced in my head.
How much is a lifetime of pennies worth? A hill of beans would be significantly more valuable. When I took my receipt to the teller, she handed over all of $52.63, in two twenties, a ten, two quarters, a dime and—thus we start again—three pennies.
Tomorrow: the nickels.
posted by DO at 4:04 PM
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