Tom, Why Do You Pick Up Pennies?

Hello again all,

There is typically just a small group of people who receive my blogs, and even a smaller group who actually read them.  So if you are reading this, bravo for you.  :D

There is a long standing joke, or joking around, that I will pick up any change off the ground.  pennies, nickles, dimes, anything.  A few of my friends have cashed in on the joke as all good friends do.  I have one friend who actually bought a roll or two of pennies and would randomly throw them on the ground just to see me pick them up.  My friends would laugh and get a good chuckle.  It got a bit tiring and they thought it was a good chain yanker, but it doesn't much bother me what they think or why they do it.  I know that they are my friends and they are having a good time at my expense, but I am still going to pick up pennies.

I wish I could say I have some super spiritual reason for picking up pennies.  There is a story about a man who picks up pennies because of the phase "In God We Trust".  While that is in itself a worthy and noble enough reason to pick up a penny, it isn't my reason.

I wish I could say that I am picking them up to save for a cause, for a cure, for something noble, but I am not.  Each time I pick up a penny I say, "Blessed by the Lord."

I wish I could say that I am picking them up to use for some other purpose like making a table of pennies, or using them to decorate, plant in a garden to keep away slugs, line up 16 pennies to measure an exact foot, or just drilling holes in them to make washers (which is cheaper than buying a washer in the store).  But no none of these are the reason I pick up pennies.

The real reason that I pick up pennies goes back many years ago.  You see, before certain times in my life, I too would not go terribly out of my way to pick up change.  There is an OCD side of me that says that having money on the ground is not right and needs to be fixed, but I could forgo some of that urge.

I could point to many times, even going back to my childhood where money was tight.  My brother and I would use straws and wadded up napkins to reach for and pull money from under vending machines that other people couldn't or didn't want to reach.  I also remember racing through the O'Hare airport back in the day when there were lines and lines of pay telephones.  We would go to the airport on 'vacation' to watch the airplanes take off and land from the observation deck.  We never got to ride in one, so the next best thing was to watch them take off an land.  But I digress, we would frantically run from pay phone to pay phone looking for any change that anyone might have left in the phone.  We realized that sometimes coins just got stuck and all you had to do was either press the coin return lever, or bang on the phone a bit to get the coins to drop.  I remember a time when we walked out of there back in the 70's with over $2 each.

But the one time that was a turning moment in my life was a time when I found myself homeless, living in my car, without any money except for 31 cents that I managed to find under the seat.  My car was nearly on empty and it was a cold fall.  I needed my car to get around and for shelter.  I had to choose between 31 cents in gas or maybe buying something to eat.  This was one of the lowest, most humbling times in my life.

I decided that having gas, even 31 cents worth, in my car was more important than eating.  After a while I got very hungry, to the point that I had rationalized stealing food from the store to survive.  I even amazed myself what I would do when I was that hungry.  I am not proud of this and nor do I condone it.  In fact, I am embarrassed and ashamed of myself for this.  But at the time, I thought I had no other choices.  I would steal canned fish, anything that was open in the fruit or vegetable section, and one time even hot dogs.  Over time I found other food outlets that didn't involve stealing.

But I vividly remember coasting into the gas station, as I turned off my car and coasted as far as I could and even pushed when I needed to, just to save gas.  When I got to the pump I thought how awkward this is going to be to put exactly 31 cents of gas in my car.  And if I do go over, Lord I hope that there is a "Need a Penny" inside.  As I got out of my car I saw another penny on the ground.  I looked around and saw that someone had actually emptied their entire ashtray, full of cigarette butts and change, all over the ground.  I sifted through the mess and managed to pick up another 53 cents.  This got me thinking....I wonder if there is any money at the other pumps?  I walked to every pump in the station and sure enough, I found more money.  I moved garbage cans, looked inside of them.  I found enough pennies and spare changed to buy over a gallon of gas.  I left my car at the gas station and walked a few blocks down to the other gas station.  There too I found a few more pennies.

I pumped my gas and went into pay.  It was then I realized that I am about to dump a lot of coins that were on the ground, in ash trays, onto the counter.  I went into the bathroom and washed the change as best I could and dried it off.  I then came to the side of the gas station counter and neatly stacked the change so that it could be counted accurately by the attendant.  When it was my turn, the attendant didn't even count the change.  He grabbed it all and said, "Looks close enough, I trust you."  I don't know if it was that he was lazy and simply didn't want to count the money, or that he was sympathetic and knew it would be close enough.  Either way, I had the exact amount, $2.21.

This went on for several weeks until some other things changed in my life.  It took over a year and a very good friend, whom I miss dearly, and some of the friends that kid around with me about pennies before I was able to even have my own place.

I really wish I could share some really cool reason that I pick up pennies, but there isn't one.  It is all about survival, and remembering a time when each penny was valuable.  It was about a time when I said, "Lord, give me today food.", and then returning and truly meaning, "Lord, thank you for this food today."  I know some people will pray and out of automatic conditioning, "OH LORD GOD!. Thank you for this food which is before us today....".  Not me!  Every time I pray, "thank you for this food", I remember that every penny counted, and still counts today.