Penny Lame

When you bring your own bags to Loblaws, they give you a one cent discount for each bag. So when my bill came to a round eight dollars today, the cashier took off 2 cents for my two cloth bags. I then had a pair of jangling pennies in my pocket, of little use, except to make exact change.

I grew up with the saying “a penny saved is a penny earned,” but I think we may be at the point, with inflation and modern society, that a penny just isn’t really worth anything anymore.

If I took each penny that I deemed “worthless” in my life, and pooled them, I’d probably have about 700, which over my entire life, is $7. If you look at the big picture you could say that in a city of 3 million, with each citizen saving $7, the cast off pennies would amount to a lot of money. But that abstract amount is automatically put back into the nebulous fray of the city on a daily basis when you leave your "worthless" pennies at convenience stores, in your change at a restaurant, or mistakenly behind couches.

Australians and New Zealanders don’t have coinage below 5 cents anymore. (They also have a high number of residents who feel no pressing need to don footwear in town - but that’s a different post.) What a lovely, laid back way of being! All prices are quoted to the nearest nickel and if something is sold by weight, shopkeepers round up or down from the calculated price.

The Kiwis and Aussies were ahead of the mark in giving women the vote and they are consistently ahead with educational theory and practices. Could they be ahead when it comes to shrapnel in our pockets?