Saturday, January 4, 2020

RECORD! BROKEN! A CENTSational End to Val's Future Pennyillionaire Year!

Sorry. Did I give away the big reveal in the title? So sue me. Good luck getting your grubby mitts on my Future Pennyillionaire Fortune!

Down to the wire it went. A thick wire. Three days thick. On SUNDAY, December 29, I made my regular trip to town for a 44 oz Diet Coke, and scratchers. The Pony had some winners he wanted traded on fresh tickets. My plan was to patronize The Gas Station Chicken Store, and the Backroads Casey's.

The first part of the plan went off without a hitch. My tickets cashed in, others bought, magical elixir secure in T-Hoe's cup holder. I took the alley across the moat to Casey's, where the parking lot was full. Dang those other patronizers! I took a detour to pick up some lunch. Thought about skipping Casey's entirely. But a little voice in my head said, "Now, Val. You know that your first instincts are usually correct. Get back over to Casey's for those tickets." I listen to myself pretty well. Better than Hick does. So back I went. Only one car parked in front. Plenty of room for T-Hoe.

As I slid out, taking care not to drag the back of my pants leg on the muddy running board, I surveyed the concrete. NO PENNIES! Oh, well. As I rounded T-Hoe's bumper, up on the sidewalk, I was thinking that I still had two more days to break my 2018 penny record.


Sometimes, all you gotta do is wish. There was a penny, right in my path! Waiting for me to come back to Casey's. I'd have missed it if I didn't listen to that little voice.


It was a 2018, face down. I don't hold that against him. I put him in my shirt pocket, and headed inside, smug with the joy of breaking my record. The pressure was off.

Well. Ain't that a fine how-do-you-do? Right inside the door was ANOTHER penny waiting, just for me!

It took tremendous self-control not to jump on that face-down 1978 penny like Shirley Feeney on a buffet cracker (around the 4:00 mark) after a weekend as a guinea pig in a food deprivation experiment. Good thing, too, because that dude must have stepped back on it three times. I was afraid he'd feel it under his heel, and want it for himself. YOU WOULD, wouldn't you???

I didn't get a close-up, because the clerk, the one who's told me about finding pennies all over the basement of the house she bought, called me out. "Oh, so now you take PICTURES of them, too?" Just in a joking way. And right after I'd seen the THIRD penny, over at the other register!

A face-down 1983, which I also snatched up, before the spare clerk could open up that register and attract annoying, penny-trampling customers!

YES! I broke my one-year penny record!
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2019 Running Total
Penny     # 132, 133, 134.
Dime      still at 20.
Nickel    still at 8.
Quarter   still at 5.

2018 TOTALS
Penny  131
Dime  17
Nickel  6
Quarter  1

2017 TOTALS (Started in March, 2017)
Penny  78
Dime   6
Nickel  0
Quarter  0
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6 comments:

  1. Does the IRS monitor your posts?

    ReplyDelete
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    1. As closely as a waitress who has noticed stemware missing from her table, I think...

      It is reported as "other income" at TurboTax time. After being Even-Stevened with the losses, of course.

      Delete
  2. Hooray for records broken!
    Laverne and Shirley are so hysterically funny I can only ever watch one episode at a time, then have to take a break for about three years to get over it.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Yes! I was thrilled at the last-minute additions!

      I wish Laverne and Shirley episodes were showing on a regular basis. I don't understand why every time Hick turns on the TV, he can find Andy Griffith, or MASH. I much prefer Laverne and Shirley.

      Delete
  3. I thought of you when I found a 1945 wheat penny. You are going to hit it rich one of these days when you find a rare coin. My kids did when they were digging to China in our back yard. Their dad asked a collector how to clean the foreign coin up. He said, Insert it into a raw potato and it should come out like new. HA! If only we had warned my mom. She came over and cleaned out my fridge, and tossed "that nasty rotten potato".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, no! That's a raw deal! I find a wheat penny every couple of months, usually out of a penny roll I get at the bank for my 44 oz Diet Coke money. Exact change takes 4 pennies a day.

      In fact, there's one on the kitchen counter right now. I give them to Hick, who collects them. I guess he needs to look up their dates and see if any are valuable. And give me a cut of the profit!

      Delete