A Bad Penny

 It wasn’t as if I hadn’t heard all the phrases before. My favorite being if you pick a penny up, you’ll have good luck. Or, a penny for your thoughts. Boy, if I had a penny every time I’d heard that one, I’d have been rich.

No, I was never that lucky.

Never found.

Never picked up.

Everyone passed me by without a thought in their minds. Maybe I was too little to understand why folks were going by me. I could only look one way. Down.

Did you know that ants will come cross over me when they can? I think one of them tried picking me up once, but I don’t think I got far. I think I came to a curb, is that a curb? What’s a curb?

Black tiny ants that do the bidding of the large Queen ant to get food. I guess one of them thought I was food. Too bad, I wasn’t even good enough for that.

Stuck again on a sidewalk with no name, I sat there for what seemed like an eternity.

Another rain storm hit and I got pelted and I could feel the water running off my back. It hurt for a long time, but then the rain finally petered out and I felt the warm sun once again on my back as I sat there looking at the rubble in my face.

All of a sudden, I heard a young voice call out. “Mama, what is that?”

Wait, is this my savior? My hero? After all this time? What is this? A human child?

“Oh, honey, that’s a bad penny, don’t pick that up. That will bring you bad luck!”

“How do you know, it will bring you bad luck?” It sounded like a young boy’s voice to me.

“Darren, just trust me, okay, now, come on, we have to go now. Daddy is waiting for us.”

“I’m going to pick it up and show it to daddy. Maybe he can tell me more about this shiny thing. Look, it’s so shiny!”

Next thing I knew, small, grubby fingers grabbed the side of me, and then I slid down into something else. Something dark. Maybe this young human would forget all about me after all.

At least I could see something different. Some lint stared at me, it couldn’t talk to me, but I thought this would be an adventure. I wasn’t waiting on a street somewhere with people passing me by.

The human child sat down and grabbed me and pulled me from the place he had put me.

“Look daddy! Look what I found today! It’s so shiny!”

“Oh, great! That’s a penny buddy! You can save up a bunch of those and you can get whatever you want. Do you know if you collect a hundred of those, you’ll have a lot of money?”

Money? What was money? I didn’t have a clue as to what this guy was saying. I just knew the ground and then this dark place that this child brought me out of.

“Honey, go bring me that jar, I have in my room, you’ll see it. You know the one with all the coins in it?”

“Darling, do I have to, you know you are only encouraging him to get more dirty!”

“Come on, let him have a little fun. Soon, he’ll be a teenager and then next he’ll be out of the house. Let him have some memories here. This is what my dad did with me, and my granddaddy before that.”

After a huff of annoyance, the lady left me with Daddy and little Darren. “You know my granddaddy taught me that money is tight and that you have to keep every penny you ever find.”

“Mommy said it was an unlucky penny. I thought it was so shiny, I couldn’t leave it on the curb by itself, I didn’t want it to be lonely.”

“You’re a good boy Darren. Daddy is proud of you. Nothing is really unlucky though. Not really. Some folks have a harder time than others. Some make lots of money and be wealthy. But you need to know the difference between being rich in money or rich in love.”

“Blech, I don’t want to be in love yet, daddy. I’m only 5.” The little boy shoved a finger up his nose.

Ew, those hands would touch me again. Oh well. At least he picked me up. I’d have to give him some grace.

Daddy laughed this loud guffaw and I saw the little boy light up with his own toothless smile. The boys blue eyes sparkled with mischief.

Soon the mommy returned with the jar, and I saw lots of other shiny items in there, a few even looked just like me! I couldn’t believe it! Had I found my clan? My brethren? My tribe?

Daddy opened up the jar with ease and grabbed one way down in the jar. His large hand grabbed a few things in there and dropped a few back.

“Aha! I found it!”

“What, daddy? What did you find?”

“I think I was your age when I found my first penny too. That’s when granddaddy told me about how important it was to save up money.”

“Money? This is money? What’s money daddy?” The boy was so curious, I wanted to know too!

“Money will buy you things you want, like toys or stuff you need to survive. Food, shelter and other important things too. You can save it in a jar like this or in a bank. Although granddaddy didn’t believe in the banks though. Back then, when he was a kid, like you are now, things were different. There was a war and money was tight.” Daddy wiped a tear off his cheek with his large hand.

“So, if you put your penny in there, then you can save up for your future. Go to college one day or save it for a car or a toy now.”

“A real car? Like my matchbox cars?”

“Better, but you’ll have to wait a while to get a real one, and it costs a lot of money, so you’ll have to save lots and lots of pennies okay?”

“I want a new matchbox car daddy.” Boy, this kid was greedy.

“Yes, there is a thing of want and need right? What you want right now and what you need right now are two different things.” Daddy gently told this boy.

“Okay, I think I understand. So, I put my penny in the jar?”

“Yes, this is my first penny I ever found. See, it’s a little discolored, but it has a date on the front. This here is Abraham Lincoln. He was a President. He was famous in his time, when you get older, I’ll tell you what happened.”

I saw the other penny the dad had in his big hand. The face looked just like mine! Wait, was I a twin? No, was this my dad? The date showed 1968, my date I had stamped on me was 2018. Was this my granddad?

“They look the same, except for yours is darker and mine is shiny!”

“That’s okay, they still cost the same.”

“They do?”

“Yes, this coin here is $.01 and your coin in your hands is also $.01. A penny. You know they say a penny saved is a penny earned. You certainly earned this penny today.”

“Boys, time to get dinner! Darren, go and wash your hands!” Mommy had enough of this conversation.

“Daddy, can I keep the jar?”

“Sure, buddy. When you get older, and your son asks you when he finds a penny on the ground you can tell him the same thing.”

“I’m gonna save for a real car!” Darren’s voice was hushed and in awe.

“Good luck buddy, it will take you lots of jars!”

“Mommy, this penny wasn’t unlucky after all! It will eventually get me a real car!”

“I don’t know why you encourage him in his imagination honey.” Mommy sounded upset. I didn’t care, I was dropped into this jar and now I could have conversations about their adventures.

Maybe I wasn’t so unlucky after all.