money (in the physical sense)

I am visiting rysmiel in Montreal. It took less than a day for me to reach into my pocket for coins, look at the (American) penny that came out, and think "what is that doing there?" A few hours later, I reached in again, found the same ocin, and said "pennies. Feh."

Yes, there are a lot of more important things wrong with my country and its government, but being up here where the smallest coin is a nickel reminds me of what a nuisance they are. The last time I fed change into the Coinstar machine (and put the value on a Starbucks card rather pay a 10% fee) it told me I had put in between thirteen and fourteen dollars, including an even hundred pennies.

(In both countries I find myself wishing there were more $10 bills in circulation—it's almost all fives and twenties—but that's a smaller thing. It seems to make a little more sense up here, where the five is the smallest paper money.)