Last night I was at a grocery store buying some food and I didn’t have the right change to avoid getting pennies back but I was able to get close. The store I was at has those automatic change makers and two pennies dropped into the dish. I took my bags and started walking. The cashier said, “Miss, you forgot your change!” But I didn’t, I wanted the fellow behind me to use it if needed. So I knowingly replied, “no I didn’t,” then smiled and walked on my way.

The closure of this scene played out the same way yet again as I always botch the interaction. The cashier took the two cents, opened the cash drawer and dumped them in. Yet again I wasn’t literal enough with the clerk and my penny hating soul cried out for justice. It was a customer who was to benefit from those two cents, not the corporation.

With the extreme devaluation of the one cent coin it was behoove us to just round purchase up or down to the nickel. “Take a penny, Leave a penny” cups functionally do this already and are quite common. The single cent as a monetary concept should stay in place though, for calculating interest rates and such, but outside of the inner workings of the financial system I’d be quite happy to see them go the way of the half cent coin–last produced in 1857. Pennies in everyday life should just disappear.

I know I need to be much more literal and far less flippant in my explanation of why I’m leaving change behind. Other cashiers at other stores will generally leave them on the register or the counter for the next person “getting” what’s going on. But the seemingly bright people I’ve had tally my food purchases don’t seem to catch on. As such I need to train myself to say, “I’m leaving those so the next customer can avoid getting his or her own pennies–a mutual aid society of sorts. Thanks!” And through this societal passing along of pennies we’re in essence agreeing that the time of the penny has long since past by our own actions.

Once I got outside the store I had a realization. Since becoming homeless I’ve taken to picking up pennies again. I hadn’t done this since I was little, when pennies really meant something as back then I had a one dollar a week allowance and a penny was another piece of candy. These were the times when a penny could still buy things. And sure enough I saw that tarnished copper on the ground and even burdened with a couple bags I still bent down to pick up the cent. It certainly wasn’t for the value of the object as functionally it has almost nil. At best I could rationalize that collecting waste pennies is symbolic of my tighter nature with money these days–but not as actual currency as I’d just left two behind for others.

So evidently pennies have value. One part good luck, one part kindness.

(For those keeping score here’s my shopping haul: Two bottles of cranberry juice, a pound of grapes, three bananas, a pound of strawberries, a pound of tomatoes.)

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