It is a real bummer they stopped making pennies.
The copper coins used to litter the sidewalks, brightening the days of everyone who found one. Abraham Lincoln’s face staring out of the coin, giving you permission to take the coin and accept the good luck granted to you. Now, the once infinitely handy pennies have taken their final bow.
On Nov. 12, 2025, the U.S. officially decided that pennies were no longer worth making and ceased producing them. But to me, the coins have value beyond their monetary worth.
In 1522, Sir Thomas More coined (get it) the term “a penny for your thought” in his unfinished treatise “Four Last Things.” He wrote, “It often happeth, that the very face sheweth the mind walking a pilgrimage, in such a wise that other folk sodainly say to them a peny for your thought.”
This now common round-about way of saying “tell me what you are thinking” implies that people are paying attention to your expressions and are using them to tell when there is more to the story your face is painting. It is even used as a means of saying one would pay to know what is going on in your head.
It seems inflation has worked its way into the equation. All we can seem to afford now are typical surface level conversations. You know, the:
‘Hey, how are you?’
‘Good, how are you?’
‘Good! Well, I will see you around!’
Sound about right? We have these conversations all the time without caring about the response. Actually, being interested is just out of the budget, so the conversations stick to the same script. Because our conversations tend to only scratch the surface, most of our words stay inside. The regression into surface level conversations is rooted in the safety of superficial talk. We do not care to seek out the small details, the hidden clues in tone or demeanor, because we are not listening in the first place. Playing detective just seems to be far too much effort.
For that reason, it is easier to just be difficult to read. Why make the attempt to let others know more about us? We tend to feel everything and say nothing. In fact, our feelings sometimes do not even become fully formed thoughts, they are just too large for words. Silence protects us from emotional regret but builds walls that will eventually become impossible to penetrate. Are we protecting our peace or being avoidant? Is vulnerability a bad thing now?
All I know is that, in every person I pass, there is a massive build-up of penny worthy thoughts that are now worth a fortune that we can no longer afford. Each thought left unsaid is another cent dropped into the bottomless piggy bank somewhere in the back of our minds.
For that reason, I make sure to keep a penny on me always. You never know what kinds of priceless stories people might be able to buy with just a cent.