By Lisa Scottoline
I guess you heard the big financial news.
Or rather the little financial news.
They’re getting rid of the penny.
Rats!
Do you want to live in a world without pennies?
I don’t.
Pennies are so cute!
Evidently it costs $0.04 to make a penny, so I guess it’s economic.
But it costs $0.14 to make a nickel, and nobody’s dissing the nickel.
I’d take a penny over a nickel any day.
You can’t quantify everything.
Even money.
I love pennies so much I named a dog Penny. Her fur was the warm copper color of a penny.
A penny’s only 2% copper and 98% zinc, but still.
Zinc is a bad dog name.
And I always pick up a penny if I see one on the sidewalk, then I say the lines: See a penny, pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck.
Honestly, I’ve been lucky since my last divorce.
I have purses that have a penny in them that I found on the sidewalk.
What are we going to do for luck now?
When we seem to need it most?
I even have memories associated with pennies.
I always got pennies in my Christmas stocking, which I loved. Somehow a penny on a magical morning is worth more than a cent.
And I had pink piggybank full of pennies. It was about three dollars but I felt rich as Midas. And I remember getting coin envelopes, stacking the pennies inside, then taking them to the bank and depositing them in my savings account.
I still have that plaid passbook.
Its balance won’t buy a pack of gum, but it has sentimental value, which is the most expensive kind.
I owned a pair of penny loafers, with actual pennies in the slot.
And how about when you went on a field trip, and they had big machines that you could put a penny in, and it would smash the penny into a souvenir?
I did that a bunch of times.
I remember how cool it was to press the penny and get this squashed penny that of course I would lose.
But still, pennies!
Remember penny candy?
When I was a kid, I used to go to a candy store and get penny candy out of a big glass jars. Come to think of it, we would all stick our hand in the same jar, so it couldn’t have been sanitary.
But what do you want for a penny?
You get what you pay for.
Cheap germs!
And I remember putting a penny in a gumball machine.
Magic!
Or, stale gum!
And there are so many expressions with pennies.
Like, a penny for your thoughts.
Now we won’t know what anybody is thinking.
Women are always asking men that in the movies.
I myself have asked men that question, in a feeble bid for intimacy.
Funny, when I heard the answer, it wasn’t worth the money.
And how about the expression, bright as a penny?
Now nothing will be bright.
Penny wise and pound foolish?
I think of that all the time.
It guides my financial planning.
And how about, not a penny more?
I think it when I’m shopping online.
A pretty penny?
Gives me a shiny image every time.
And how about penny ante?
Or in for a penny, in for a pound.
I love that expression.
Or penny dreadful?
I hate that expression.
Penny stocks will probably continue.
Because money makes the world go round, in whatever denomination.
But me, I’m saving my pennies.
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