Paying for Coins

Folks need to make up their minds: are coins worth it or not?

In large quantities, they are totally worth it. Much like parts of Voltron, they are rather useless on their own, but when combined together, they are a force to be reckoned with. People just can't seem to wrap their heads around one side of the argument or the other. So they end up being sort of hypocritical: you should keep change, but don't even think about using it as money!

Let me expound, with examples.

When I get a small amount of change, I cast it aside like it's an orphan on the street. Twelve cents? Get the heck out of here and bother someone else! I usually leave it on the counter, or in a cup so that others make take and share a penny. It's not that I'm rich or too vein to deal with it, but rather I find it useless and annoying. You could keep that twelve cents, letting it clink around in your pants all day, until you get home and lose it in the couch (if you didn't already lose it in your car). So instead, I think it's much more beneficial to just put it in a cup so that others can partake. Or, if it's just a penny, and there isn't a cup to place it in, I throw it on the ground...

That's right. I throw it on the ground.

It's not littering because someone is going to pick that penny up. Maybe not because they need a penny to pay for something (because most clerks will let you go if you're a penny short), but because they believe in the luck-bestowing powers of President Lincoln. While I love Lincoln as much as the next fella, I don't need his stupid penny. Besides, pennies cost more to produce than they are actually worth... which also means that the price of my thoughts just rose as well.

So when I cast my change aside, people look at me like I'm a total ass. "Are you seriously not keeping that eighteen cents?" they'll say to me. It's not like I just punched a baby in the face, I just didn't want to keep the change. "But it's still money," they'll say. When I offer it to them, they don't want anything to do with it.

For as much as I'm chastised for refusing to acknowledge that small amounts of change are currency, I'm chastised even more for actually using change to buy things. I'm not talking about lugging in sacks of pennies to buy an iPod, but rather purchasing cheap goods like a cup of coffee or a donut.

Every time I drive in to Pittsburgh for work, I go through this quaint little drive-thru coffee shop. It's nice. But because drinking coffee can get expensive, and because I've been on a very tight budget as of late, I use change in my car to pay for the drink. It's about $1.44. So that's five quarters and two dimes (and then I say "Keep the penny" because I sure as heck don't want it!) I roll up there in my LeSabre each morning, roll down the window, order the same thing, and hand them the same amount of change. And each time, the guy smirks at me, as if to say "I can't believe you are so cheap as to pay with change." I'm sure that those clerks refer to me as "The Change Guy" or "Silver McGraw" after I drive away. Is it so wrong that I pay with all change? Isn't that what you people want me to do, instead of just throwing the change away or keeping it in a jar in my room?

Of course, the whole operation goes sour last week, when I pull up to the coffee shop and try and hand them my $1.44 in change and a punch card (buy eight coffees get one free, sucka!) I am trying to hand the guy the change and the card in one try. I've done this before, it's never a problem. But this time, the guy bobbles the change! He can't grasp the transaction that's taking place, and the coins explode! Change flies everywhere, banging off of my car door, smacking on to the tar below.

"Oh god!" I exclaim, immediately ashamed of my abuse of the coin.

"Just... Just don't worry about it. Just go," he says, knowing that Silver McGraw has struck again.

I try to open my door, to salvage some of the coins that dropped, but he continues to insist that I "just go." So I drove away, and never turned back.

Yet only once have I actually gotten a complaint from a cashier for using change.

I was extremely hungry, and craving non-other than the Papa Burger at A&W. So I drove out there one evening, with just a handful of change (two dollars and something). I ordered the burger, pulled around the drive-thru and change the guy the change. After he handed me the receipt, he said, "If you take that receipt and go to our website, you can register to win a million dollars... then you don't have to buy cheeseburgers with change."

Just be happy I'm not using food stamps.

I can't win. People want me to use coins, but when I use them I get dirty looks. The only way to win is to take your change and give it to any charity you can find--whether it's in a clear plastic box next to a cash register, or one of those spiral coin slides you can find at the mall. Just give that to charity, because they can actually use coins. And they won't spill them on the streets.