Pennies

*Originally published on 2/25/09


Cinemassacre.com is, most notably, the home of the Angry Video Game Nerd. Rolfe occasionally breaks character and puts up videos as himself. Like AVGN, he has another recurring "mini-show" called "You know what's bullshit?". Here he rants about things that annoy him. One of his early rants talks about how pennies annoy him.

I have to agree. They're practically useless, so much so that nobody wants them. Pennies are everywhere, try as you might you can't get rid of them. Like a DragonBall Z villain, you may think you've bested your penny supply, but a few seconds later, it regenerates and you're stuck with more pennies.

As I said before, nobody wants pennies anymore. If you're trying to get rid of some pennies and lighten your pockets a little, good luck. Vending machines specifically say that they don't take pennies, same goes for laundry machines (in fairness, they're even pickier taking ONLY quarters). If you're checking out in line and try to dump some change, you only hold up the line and frustrate everybody else. Even the stores don't want pennies, that's why they put that tray out saying here take 'em. This works both ways as this is a good way to ditch a few pennies here and there. It's not enough though, inevitably, you'll be stuck with more pennies. You can try tossing them on the ground or into those fountains at the mall, it's no use. Even if you have those bank rolls that take fifty at a time, you won't be able to hold back the never ending wave of pennies. They come back so frequently that it puts all of the Hollywood movie monsters combined to shame.

I wouldn't mind pennies so much, but there are just so many of them. You don't see quarters or dimes being pumped out at that frequency, even nickels aren't churned out at such a rapid pace. It's unnecessary, as more and more people use plastic at the register as opposed to cash, there's no need to make so many coins. You're just inconveniencing all of us.

You want to hear something odd? It costs more than a penny to make a penny. Given the general uselessness of a penny this may not seem all that surprising, but think about it for a second. What sort of backwards nonsense is that? It's like taking a hundred steps back in order to take one step forward.

I know a while back, Super Fresh, introduced those coinstar machines, where you could dump your change and get a voucher for cash or discount on groceries. I don't know if they still have them; I hope so. It's too bad more stores don't have a similar machine. The self checkout machine takes coins and I've found that is useful in getting rid of my spare pennies and change in general.

With all the money being pumped out, pennies are becoming more and more useless. We either need to stop making them or places need to be more willing to take them. Even if it is just vending and laundry machines opening themselves up to pennies, it would go a long way to making these obsolete coins at least quasi useful.