“Monday 5 Things” ….. Penny For Your Thoughts …..
November 17, 2025 by D. Paul Graham
Ever curious and always amused by the quirks of life, join D. Paul Graham each Monday for more M5T pondering.
“Penny for your Thoughts” photo D. Paul Graham 2025
The US Mint has, finally, decided to stop producing pennies. There’s something poetic, and perhaps slightly unhinged, about debating the future of a coin that nobody has taken seriously since Blockbuster cards were still in our wallets. The penny is overproduced, undervalued, expensive to make, and strangely sticky for reasons no scientist can explain.
This morning’s M5T is dedicated to the coin that costs more to make than it’s worth, smells like loose change in your granddad’s recliner, and lives forever in the dark corners of your cupholders.
1. THE BREAKUP. Every year, billions of pennies are minted at a net loss and then we all toss them aside like tiny metallic afterthoughts. So as America edges closer to its copper curtain call, I can only imagine the heart-to-heart the U.S. Mint had with pennies when it finally decided to end things. Meetings probably went something like this:
“You cost me more than you give back. I can’t keep pouring into this relationship.”
“We’ve drifted apart. I’ve grown and you haven’t changed since 1793.”
“I need room to develop. You need a cozy jar on someone’s dresser next to mystery keys and expired coupons.”
“You keep appearing in places I’m not ready for. My car floor, the washing machine, the bottom of every junk drawer in America. It’s too much.”
“Honestly, you’ve been draining me financially.”
The Mint had to look the penny in the face and say, “We’re just not good for each other anymore.” And that’s when you know it’s time to let go, wish the penny well, and send it off into a peaceful, copper-colored retirement.
2. GERMAPOLLOZA. Pennies are copper petri-dishes for microbes. If nickels and dimes are the hard-working middle class of American currency, then pennies are the retirees living in Florida, with too much time on their hands, wearing sandals with socks, and arguing loudly at HOA meetings about mailbox paint colors. Pennies have been everywhere. Gutters, gas station floors, kids’ mouths, sticky restaurant booths, every cupholder in the continental United States, and that one kitchen drawer where scissors, batteries, and unidentified objects go to their final resting place.
A penny found under your car seat has stories. It has lived multiple lives. It has regrets. It carries bacteria that are tougher and longer lasting than Keith Richard’s immune system.
Then there’s the smell. That coppery metallic, “old pirate treasure meets closed-for-too-long hockey bag” aroma that hits you with the force of a time warp. Smell a penny and suddenly it’s 1983, filling your nose with the bouquets of shag carpet, tube socks, big hair, puffy shoulder pads, and questionable decisions.
If you’ve ever fished one out from under a car seat, congratulations. You may now be patient zero for a new unpronounceable disease.
3. COPPER LAY ABOUT. We have a strange emotional attachment to a coin we seem to hate, but we keep in jars like little copper hostages. They’re the ultimate procrastinating currency. The slackers of the monetary world. They don’t circulate. They linger. They loiter. They take up space like the teenagers of the currency world. Always hanging around, offering nothing, eating all the snacks, and refusing to move out.
When was the last time you intentionally paid with a penny? Not one you spilled, found on the ground, or accidentally handed over with embarrassment, but one you willingly, and purposefully used like it mattered.
Pennies are why tip jars look like they’re filled with quiet disappointment. They’re the universal symbol for “I tried, but not enough to matter.” And every time you pick one up, you tell yourself, “I’ll deal with this later” but you never do as you throw it in your cup holder or that glass jar. Pennies are procrastination in metallic form. They’re pure copper denial.
4. ROUNDING RENAISSANCE. Picture a world of beautiful round numbers where every total ends in .00, .25, .50, or .75. That’s symmetry. That’s elegance. That’s the math equivalent of good lighting. Right now, our receipts look like someone angrily smashed a calculator after three espressos. $19.97? $8.63? $4.01? These aren’t prices. They’re decimals in crisis!
A penny-free world gives us the satisfaction of clean math and the simple joy of rounding. We already round everything else. Our age, our reps at the gym, our emotional availability, so why not round our totals?
The bonus is that cash register purgatory ends forever. No more hearing, “Your change is two cents.” No more awkward palm outstretched waiting for a coin that you can do without. Just keep your two cents worth. Literally and figuratively. In the new, penny-free America, we’re rounding up, rounding down, and moving on with our lives. That’s got to be at least worth a nickel.
5. YOUR THOUGHTS DESERVE A RAISE. The saying “a penny for your thoughts” made sense when a penny could buy something like bubble gum, a newspaper, or at least a sliver of dignity. Inflation alone has made our thoughts worth far more than a single copper coin.
With the demise of the penny, it’s time we upgrade the expression and our currency of wisdom. Perhaps something like “a Venmo for your thoughts”, “a nickel for your narrative”, “a PayPal for your payola”, “a buck-fifty for your existential spiral”, or “a latte for your unsolicited opinion”.
Losing the penny may mean we lose the phrase, but we’ll find new ways to price our thoughts and put some real value on each other’s ideas. When the penny goes, we won’t lose money. We’ll gain clarity, cleaner pockets, and fewer weird smells. And fear not. Lincoln still gets to stay on the $5 bill.
Here’s to a week of spending our pennies wisely.
© 2025 D. Paul Graham, All Rights Reserved
Paul continues to deal with pennies the way he deals with random screws left over after assembling anything. He keeps them, but never really knows why.
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