One month after the holidays, the treats all gone, I’m hungry, jonesing bad. Grope down behind the couch cushions in search of a stray: a foil-wrapped chocolate maybe, or a piece of stale shortbread, even a Hall’s cough drop.
Instead, something bites my finger. What the ...?
“Go away!” cried a muffled voice from the depths of the chesterfield. “Leave me alone!”
Gingerly, I pulled back the cushion. Nothing there but a one-cent coin.
“Penny!” I exclaimed. “Why did you bite me?”
“Sorry,” she replied. “Thought you were Harper, coming to get me.”
I peered closer. “Are you crying?”
“No,” she snuffled, but a single teardrop gave her away. Her smile, frozen in place since a facelift in 2003, began to slip. Embarrassed, she flipped over, showing me her maple leaf tail.
“What are you doing down there?” I asked.
“Hiding.”
“From what?”
“The pennycide.”
Of course. Monday is the day the Royal Canadian Mint stops distributing one-cent coins. They’ll still be legal tender, but retailers are being asked to round up or down to the nearest nickel when giving change. Banks are gathering them in, shipping them away for melting.
“It’s horrible,” Penny said. “One day you’re a valued piece of Canadian heritage, the next you’re in some Korean metal works, being turned into bathroom fixtures.”
“It might not be that bad,” I said. “Maybe you’ll become a Hyundai.”
“It’s because I’m a woman,” she continued. “The Americans wouldn’t dare do this to Abe Lincoln. A woman turns a certain age, and — whoosh — out of the piggy bank, into the smelter.”
“Well, you are 155 years old,” I said.
This was true. The Canadian penny predates Confederation, has been around since 1858. The first ones were made in London, England, and bore the image of Queen Victoria. It wasn’t until 1908 that they began minting the coins in Canada, and not until 1920 that the penny shrank to its current size.
The Canadian mint made 35 billion pennies before pressing the last one in May 2012. Don’t know where they all went. Probably Conrad Black’s basement. A Senate committee estimated the average Canadian has up to 600 of the coins squirrelled away in Mason jars and coffee cans. If every Victorian owned just a dollar’s worth they would stretch to Alberta — and buy half a house in Fairfield.
“Do you know why the mint stopped manufacturing pennies?” she asked.
“Because it made too much cents?” (Sometimes I crack myself up.)
“Because they said I cost more than I’m worth.” Penny’s cheeks flushed red, or at least reddish-brown.
Couldn’t deny the math, though: the one-cent piece costs 1.6 cents to make. They’re a minor annoyance, too, of little value but hard to get rid of — the squeegee guy of currency. Getting them in your change is like being served Christmas cake, except you can’t feed pennies to the dog under the table.
“I’m still useful,” she said, as though reading my mind. “Some people put pennies in the hems of drapes to make them hang nicely. I can open the battery on the TV remote, or be stuck to a chair leg to stop it from wobbling.
“Bury me under the hydrangeas and they’ll change colour,” she continued. “Toss me in a vase, I’ll stop algae from growing. Tie a bunch of us into a sock and we make a good ice pack, or a blackjack. You can tape me to the arm of a turntable if the record is skipping.”
What’s a turntable? What’s a record?
“Think of my place in pop culture,” she said. “Penny candy, Penny Lane, penny ante, penny loafers, penny stocks, penny for your thoughts, pennies from heaven. Penny wise, pound foolish. A penny saved is a penny earned.”
She struck an air of defiance. “I’m not giving up without a fight. COME AND GET ME, COPPER!”
“Um, I thought you were copper.”
Penny shook her regal head. “Not since 1996. Now I’m 94 per cent steel.”
Then she fixed me with her one good right eye: “Are you with me?”
I was torn. Didn’t like dealing with pennies, but hated to lose their history.
“I’m from Victoria,” I said. “We fear change.”
