A Penny for Your...

Something happened to me tonight that stopped me right in my tracks. I was in the Wendy's drive-though (Health Nuts: please hold your critique until the end of the post. And don't judge too harshly. I was driving back to the house after picking up a double armload of fabric and a few groceries to make tomorrow's coffee cake, and sometimes you just get in the mood for cheap meat, sweet bread and a slice of tomato, okay!? This is not the point of my story. Stop getting me so distracted). I placed my order ("Just a Junior Cheeseburger, please.""Bacon Junior Cheeseburger?" "No, no bacon." "Oh...") and pulled up to the second window, as instructed. She asked me for one dollar and ninety-eight cents. I gave her five dollars. This is a scene I have played before.

Then she handed me my change.

I am the first to confess that I suck at numbers. I don't understand math well, and I have the grades to prove it... but I can make change. I've worked a till before. I know how this works... but there it was, in my hand: three dollars.

This is weird. This is weird. Why is this weird? Huh. She kept the two pennies. Fine, I usually leave them anyway, but it's a bit rude to assume that I don't want them. Jaleesa used to collect them, and I used to save them up for her. And maybe I wanted them just to drop into the little penny collector thing under the... HOLD A SECOND?!

Pennies no longer exist. 

If you didn't already click the link above, you should. It's exactly the sort of article I would have written, had I been more on-the-ball (and employed by a big fancy newspaper). This is a sad day, my friends... taking out the little guy. It'll be the nickels next, and soon everything will get rounded to the dollar for the sake of crappy convenience and change will disappear forever! Plastic money for everyone and no more coins at all. It's coming. Mark my words.

Novel Ideas, Round Two

Every once in a while, I get it into my head that a podcast would be a lot of fun. I've tried to set one up before with no success, and after fighting with a few tutorial sites and not-very-polite-and-helpful forums, I've come up with a second best scenario for those (and mostly I mean Missa) who might prefer having my stories read to them, over reading them themselves.

That makes sense.

So here's a link to my mock-pod (which I realize looks a lot like another blog). In case you missed it, there is a little tab above which will also swing you over to the new hosting place.

All of the stories I read will be ones I've already tacked up here, but with more of the verbal pep and pizzazz that I hear in my mind when I'm writing. Happy to take requests, if you can think of a story you'd like to hear!

(If I ever figure out how to get this thing on iTunes, I will certainly let you know. Triumphantly, I expect. Might throw around some ticker-tape... because I believe sometimes even minor accomplishments deserve a little parade.)