Take a penny, leave a penny - more conversations with my eleven year old.
Posted by Richard Kuhlenschmidt Sun, 25 Mar 2007 04:52:00 GMT
So the local hardware store has this little tray near the cash register that has the inscription, “Take a penny, Leave a penny”.
As we were checking out one day, my daughter was staring at the tray. She said, “Dad, that doesn’t make any sense, if you leave a penny, and take a penny, you end up with the same amount.”
True, I said, but the idea is that, if you get pennies in your change, you put them there and the next time you check out, if you need a penny, you can take one.
But Dad, if you leave 4 pennies one time and take only one the next time, you loose three pennies.
The conversation went on for a while, when she said, what if someone walked in a took a whole pocketful of pennies.
She had me. What could I say? It had been a long day.
