T A K E A P E N N Y ,
L E A V E A P E N N Y .
BY KEVIN BLASKO
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Take A Penny:
These pennies are here for you, take one. Please. Look at the total, it ends in a two, a seven, a one. This total is shameful. Now is not the time for inconvenience. Take a penny, release the shame.
Leave a Penny:
Be a part of the community. Contribute. You are a brother to everyone — you can leave a penny. Grab your neighbor's hand, they will your hand. You, neighbors, will all join hands and together you will form a chain around the convenience store. There will be a song to sing and you will know all the words.
Leave A Nickel:
You miscreant. You don't get it, do you? Are you a professional agitator? Are you perhaps missing the point of a world divisible by five or ten? Now someone will reach for this dispenser and get nothing but despair, and more shame.
There Are No Pennies:
You wallow in a world of one, two, three, six, seven, eight, and nine. You dread the second decimal — and why not, the second decimal is full of dread, it's true.
Your Total Is $2.05:
You suffer somewhere between boasting and guilt. This too shall pass.
You Pay with a Credit Card:
You would probably leave a nickel if you had one, I bet.
You Try to Pay with SpeedPass Card:
It used to be the credit card, but you seem to have fallen down the ladder a bit. SpeedPass is but a false prophet. Beware false prophets. Only by taking or leaving pennies shall you ever know salvation.
You're Wearing a Nylon over Your Head and Waving a Gun in the Air:
You are either an addict or you lost your SpeedPass. Now you're taking everything. A penny here and there was fine at first, but now you have moved on to taking whole rolls, emptying registers. You're into bills now. Seek treatment. You can't hear yourself, but everyone else hears your cry for help.
OTHER McSWEENEY'S STORIES:
- - - -
Creepy By Sean Condon
The Seventy-Ounce Steak, An Interview with John Laslo, about Eating It All in an Hour, Part One By Matthew Summers-Sparks
No Excuses By Dan Kennedy
Sheila Heti and The Middle Stories
The Fourth Man By Sarah Manguso
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