Nickels Are The New Pennies

It was inevitable the day would come I’d be sprinkling handfuls of nickels onto my driveway, yet it’s a melancholy task all the same.

How long before a frosting-like layer of dimes will be spread atop the coating of nickels already covering the buried pennies? Not long enough.

And if I hadn’t started the whole mad business of tossing unwanted pennies (aren’t all pennies unwanted?) on my driveway back around the year 2000 I wouldn’t be in the fix I am today. And my driveway would not be covered in coins.

I’ll take whatever blame you think fitting, but cast the first penny only after you’ve looked, not in the mirror, but at Washington D.C. Think politicians. Think inflation. I’m but a pawn, yet I am the one to suffer.

And to think it all began as an understandable, even reasonable alternative to the ubiquitous water cooler jugs full of saved pennies too heavy to lift, too numerous to count, too worthless to keep, impossible to spend. Hoarding them is a proven failure. So what shall we do with pennies??

That was the question that went unanswered by my son back when he was 10-ish and we walked across the parking lot to our car. I’d spent the usual amount of money on groceries, got the usual amount of change, and was walking along plucking pennies from among the nickels, quarters and dimes in my palm.

The pennies fell to the pavement while I explained to Lucas the stark reality of the worthlessness of the one cent piece. If you collect a hundred coins and put them in a change jar, you will eventually have 25 pennies in your now empty change jar. Because you can’t spend pennies, I explained.

Nothing costs a penny and a pocketful of them is just dead weight. The console of your car, when filled with pennies, only camouflages the nickels and quarters that are spendable. Lucas was quiet, but plainly dissatisfied with my longterm financial planning strategy.

Motoring home the solution came to me, and the practice of tossing pennies onto my driveway was launched. Every time I made a purchase I carefully segregated newly acquired pennies from the more valuable shiny silver coins. Arriving home I broadcast my worthless pennies in and around the chipped brick and sand driveway, bordered as it is by a pair of red brick tire paths.

My coin garden is a tidy 25 feet long and about five feet wide. A quarter century later it remains an ongoing hobby tempered by the reluctant addition of nickels, starting last week.

In 20 years of patient sowing I have achieved a thick garden of copper, despite the best efforts of those who scoop thick piles of pennies and pour them into bags and walk away. A minor tragedy, but still the pennies accumulate.

Four days ago I was prowling around a supermarket when confronted with a sign saying “Fresh Corn! 89 cents each!” Then I knew today’s nickel is as useless as the penny back when Bill Clinton was president.

Questions: What will you buy with a dime by 2030? A quarter in 2040? The folly of someday broadcasting dollar bills into the wind, hoping they fall and stick to my driveway is already troubling me.

The heat is on

If you think it’s OK to leave your dog in the car for just a few minutes while you hurry into Safeway to cool off in front of an open door in the ice cream aisle, try this fun little experiment.

First, pick out a scorching hot Ukiah afternoon. Next park at Safeway and roll the windows to the top. Sit quietly (or not) and wait until you start to sweat.

When your armpits are soaked and the perspiration is rolling down your forehead, turn and look in the backseat where your dog will be lying dead.

This is because dogs have small lungs, are unable to perspire and therefore cannot cool off except by panting. Panting is an inefficient cooling process and that’s Ta Dah! why your dog died so quickly.

The same is true of babies and small kids: they are unable to sweat effectively and thus will expire before you can pick out a gallon of ice cream.

Also: No dogs allowed to roast and fry in the beds of pickup trucks.

You will not be told again, except maybe by the police officer arriving on the scene to arrest your for cruelty to animals.

Only haul your dog(s) around in chauffeured limousines with advanced air conditioning features like Tom Hine does. If you have an imaginary pal like TWK, no sweat. Let him walk.