Time and time again I am reminded that it is the small things that make a difference. Last night, we watched the documentary on Netflix where Jane Goodall was interviewed right before her death. A wonderful interview that I commend to all. I looked forward to her answer of what an ordinary person can do to aid the environment, but I admit a little disappointment when she gave as an example that we not dirty up the plastic liners in the hotel trash cans. A small step but important to Mother Earth.
Which, naturally, brought me to the humble, soon-to-be-extinct penny.
Logically, I know retiring the one-cent piece is a fiscally and environmentally responsible baby step toward saving both the US Treasury and whatever poor copper-mining elf is currently slaving away. It’s a move that makes perfect sense, yet I will miss my tiny, copper antagonist.
What will now fill the enormous, unlabeled jar in my office that currently serves as a monument to financial procrastination? (I just can’t find the time to go to the grocery store and exchange my pennies for a piece of paper that says I’m ten dollars wealthier.) How will we justify the glorious ten minutes of chaos in the grocery line while the person in front of me frantically searches for 4 cents among their lint, receipts, and gum wrappers? That brief, beautiful moment of communal impatience is a rite of passage.
And what coin will throw out my back like when I’d see a dirty penny on the ground in a parking lot, forcing me to debate whether my financial future is worth a brief moment of public humiliation? I’m convinced the U.S. Mint designed the penny solely to test our commitment to immediate wealth acquisition. Am I the only one old enough to remember when you could carry a pocketful of pennies and actually buy a six-cent Coke? Those were simpler, heavier times.
These days, I just say “yes” when the checkout screen asks if I want to “round up” for charity. It’s another small thing that makes a difference, and it neatly sidesteps the entire penny problem. But even as I embrace digital giving, a tiny, deeply ingrained part of me will always mourn the impending death of the one-cent piece—the true cornerstone of American clutter, nostalgia, and lower back pain.
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