My Two Cents

Folks, I consider myself a fairly generous guy. Decent, helpful to his friends, blah blah blah. But there's something going on downstairs that is rubbing me the wrong way.

At the cafeteria; milk for cereal and coffee (the good stuff) come to $2.52. At the register, they have a small plastic cup with some pennies in it. I thought that it was the 'take a penny, leave a penny' deal. Rather than get 48 cents back, I'd rather just have two quarters when I hand over three bucks, so I've taken two cents out each time I go to the register.

The woman at the register gave me lip about it today. She chided me over always taking pennies out, and never putting any in. Two. Cents. I asked her if she was seriously going to begrudge me two pennies, and she said I should put some in, some time.

You know... I really ought to turn the other cheek, eat the damned humble pie and cough up some pennies for the woman next time I'm buying lunch.

But part of me would love to be a real pain in the ass about this. I mean really. Like many of you, there's a dish in my home chock full of loose change, consisting largely of, what else, pennies. How much satisfaction would I get from taking, say, a sandwich baggie and filling it with copper Lincolns, and just sardonically forking it over to the woman next time I see her? Enough to balance out dirty looks for a month from a cafeteria lady?

I don't think it's worth it, frankly. It's freaking pennies. But the urge to be a jerk about it did come up.

Just sayin'.