Here’s what I do. I place the copper coins into a wooden dish on my dresser at the end of a hard day’s work and throw a few back into my pocket at the beginning of the next day’s work in order to make change, so to speak.
When I end up with more in the bowl than I feel I need during a hectic day ‘back at the plant’, as I like to say, I put several into a plastic coin counter on a shelf near my dresser. And later, when the coin counter contains the grand total of fifty pennies, I say ‘huzzah’, reach for a penny wrapper behind the aforementioned coin counter, and within seconds I have a full roll of pennies ready to put inside a small box in my closet that contains several other rolls of pennies destined to go to the bank whenever I can find the time.
Sometimes I don’t turn in my rolls to the bank until the box is full. Other times I ‘turn them in early’, as I like to say, and as many of my friends and family members do.
Really, it’s surprising how often we bump into each other at the bank, pockets drooping down to our knees, filled with actual buckets full of pennies. If one of us ever made a video for U Tube it would get a million hits in the first hour. Every Canadian would identify with it.
I mean, how many times has the whole ‘bucket of pennies thingee’ happened to you? Many times, I’m sure. And if you’re not reading this, you’re likely waiting in line at a local bank right now, turning your pennies into a crisp and very useful ten-dollar bill.
Thank goodness then, that our Finance Minister has made plans to stop issuing the coin. Though well practiced when it comes to handling pennies, surely all Canadians from Penny’s Point, Newfoundland to Copper’s Cove, Vancouver Island will breath a deep sigh of relief, not only because of the nuisance factor (“That’s the last time I’ll be caught with my good pants dragging down around my knees because of eight rolls of pennies goin’ to the bank at one time,” will be heard in every province, eh), or because you can’t buy a darn thing with a penny (“When’s the last time you ever could get blackballs two or three for one blessed cent, or those lovely red jelly raspberries?” all the boys in Crooked Knee, Ontario will ask), but because all Canadians will feel the positive effects of saving upwards of $11 million a year in production costs.
Think of it. $11 million, or 33 pennies for every Tom, Dick or Sherry. Why, that’s huge savings, isn’t it?
Unless we run into problems with the nickel.
I mean, how much does it cost to make a nickel anyway? In all this talk about scrapping the penny did anyone bother to look at that?
What happens if we need more of them to make change with the penny gone? How much will it cost to ship more nickels across this very wide country of ours, from Penny’s Point to Copper’s Cove?
What if Finance Minister Jim Flaherty simply traded one small expense for an even greater one - just for the sake of ‘show’, just to make it look like he was actually doing something?
Worse yet. What if ten rolls of nickels is heavier than ten rolls of pennies when I go to cash them in at the bank? My good pants will be dragging right down to my ankles!
Yes sir. We could find ourselves in quite a mess.
[Photo by GHarrison]
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