The Canadian government has eliminated the penny. From now on, all prices will be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel. Since it costs 1.6 cents to manufacture each penny, this sounds like an eminently sensible step to take.
I won't miss the coin. When pennies accumulate in your pocket -- and they do -- the results are unsightly and unwieldy; they bulge, weigh a lot, and make more meaningful coins more difficult to find. Eventually the pennies get transferred to a desk drawer, where with the passing years the collection grows ever larger.
When the penny's demise was announced, Brooklyn Girl and I lugged our weighty sack of coins of the realm to a supermarket, where we dumped them into a huge penny-counting machine and wound up with about forty bucks. I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from us. I was right. Now I can shop with a light heart, and pockets to match.
I wonder what you benighted, penny-laden souls south of the border -- you with the holes in your pockets -- think of this development. A nickel for your thoughts.
(The music: Nat King Cole, piano and vocal; Oscar Moore, guitar; Johnny Miller, bass; 1943.)
