The Purpose of Pennies

Today, loyal readers, among many other errands, Mom sent me into the local drug store with a list of candy to buy at half price (this being the second day following Easter, of course).  Most of this list consisted of various Reese's products in a number of shapes and sizes.

Upon collecting the correct assortment of sugary delights, I stepped forth toward the cash register only to be cut off by an ancient little woman with a chapstick in one hand and a purple bag emblazoned with the name of a Canadian whiskey in the other.

I knew, beloved readers, what was about to happen, for I was once a cashier myself.

The revered elder presented the chapstick and then dumped the contents of the purple bag on the counter.  It consisted of 352 unwrapped pennies (a fact revealed somewhat later but which I decided to include here because I am a demi-omnipotent narrator with poetic license).

Now there are two ways a person can handle such a sight, as all of you probably know.  I chose the other one.

"You have quite the collection of pennies!" I said heartily to the aged one.

She swiveled around to glare at me balefully.  "You are buying too much candy," she proclaimed.

"Ah!" said I, "This would be true were I buying it for myself, but I have been sent upon a quest for all this candy by my mother who is an elderly woman like yourself."  And here I presented her with my list as proof of the aforementioned quest.

The old woman gazed upon the evidence, and then patted my hand approvingly.  "Your mother likes her Reese's, doesn't she?  Tell me, dear, what does she do with her pennies?"

At this point, precious readers, I should mention that three drug store employees were trying to count the pennies together.  Some of the not-really-copper-anymore discs were falling upon the floor. 

"Oh, she gives them to me," I answered, "and I use them in my slingshot to kill squirrels."

The drug store employees paused, glanced at one another, and then returned to their task.

"Why," asked the kind old crone, "would you do such a thing?"

"Because squirrels are evil," I explained.  "It is their delight to torment cats and medievalists and then shake their little tails at us.  Some people worry about a zombie apocalypse, but I know that it's the squirrels that will get us in the end."

"You are a strange person," pronounced the old woman, "but a good daughter."

"Thank you," I told her.  And then, because while I am a liar* and a squirrel-worrier, I am not mean to little old women or drug store employees, I paid for her chapstick along with Mom's candy, and helped her put her pennies back into her bag.

Also, I may have explained how to hit an attacker with a bag of pennies as we were leaving the store.  I cannot confirm this part of the tale, for I am only a demi-omnipotent narrator.

*The lie, of course, is that I attack squirrels with a slingshot.  I'm not allowed ballistic weapons of any kind.

Brief Conversation with Mom: Rock n Roll

Mom:  "I must be really, really old."

Me:  "Why do you say that?"

Mom:  "Because I hate all of this music."

Me:  "Mother, you have always hated rock.  Always.   Or since the seventies at least."

Mom:  "No I didn't!  I liked rock music!"

Me:  "Name one rock star that you like."

Mom:  "Well..."

Me: "A rock star who is still alive."

Mom:  "Oh.  That's hard. Wait."

Me:  "I'm waiting."

Mom:  "Pat Boone.  I like Pat Boone."

Me:  "He's dead, Mom."

Mom:  "No, he is not!"

Me:  "And he is definitely not a rock star."

Mom:  "What about the Beagles?  I liked the Beagles."

Me:  "Oh, Mom."

Mom:  "I know some of the Beagles are still alive."

Me:  "This conversation is going on the blog."

Mom: "The Beagles were good!  You don't know anything about good music."

This Week's Top Ten Facebook Statuses

Okay, okay, okay!  I'm sorry!  No, no, in the words of the Great Granny Weatherwax, "I aten't dead."  I've just been in lots of meetings.

Lots of meetings.


Too many meetings.

So here, my beloveds, is a brief post to keep us both going until Spring Break:

This Week's Top Ten Facebook Statuses

1. I DON’T WANNA GET TOO PERSONAL BUT YOUR FARTS MUST BE OUTRAGEOUS SIR
2. Because everything is better in hoop skirts and a corset. 
3. Don't mind me. Just sitting on the roof of the garden shed. With a 2-foot plastic penguin.
4. Mysterious brown squirrel again.
5. You can’t go to a faculty meeting with your starboard coupling off-line, that’s why. 
6.  I may be wrong, but I suspect that the effect of the suit jacket might be...a bit lessened by the effect of the Crocs.
7.  Is this a conspiracy of awesome teachers that I don't know about?
8.  Just another folding chair injury.  I can still squeak it.
9.  Well, a garlic press should be a kind of newspaper.  Or a basketball strategy.
10.  I have sworn not to speak of fewmets in class again.  But we all know that I’m an oath-breaker.