Penny Travels

A copper penny was first handed in 1969 to Caroline after she purchased a jug of milk. She kept the penny in her pocket, carried it home, and placed the penny in a tin jar her family kept in the kitchen. The penny stayed there for months before one of Caroline’s sons, Jeffery, took some change to buy a sticker from a friend.

The friend of Jeffery’s, Reagan, was selling stickers for 15¢ in order to buy herself a new pair of shoes. The penny was transferred over to Reagan, and she kept in in a small lunchbox under her bed for safe keeping. Her parents were so proud of Reagan that they surprised her one day with brand new shoes. Reagan was overjoyed; she didn’t have to pay a cent.

The penny from 1969 stayed in Reagan’s lunchbox until 1977, when it was poured out on the carpet in her bedroom. Reagan had grown up and could drive herself now, and she was on her way to see a movie with her friends. Reagan now hated coins and change because they got everywhere are were completely unnecessary in her eyes, so she decided she’d spend it all – she wouldn’t even keep the change. So little by little Reagan paid for things with coins, which was obnoxious to all clerks.

Reagan marched up to the box office and paid in full the $2.00 for a ticket to see Star Wars. She counted out quarters, dimes, nickels, and a few pennies and pushed them over the counter to the box officer employee. The employee swept the penny from 1969 into the till and kept it in the slot where all the pennies were held until closing.

But before closing, someone purchased a ticket to see the same movie as Reagan and needed change. And so the penny was transferred into the pocket of Gunther. Gunther watched the movie and returned home, but he forgot to take the change out of his pocket. So when Gunther removed his pants, the penny stayed in the pocket.

Gunther took his clothes to a laundromat and washed his pants, as any adult should, and the penny tumbled noisily inside the washer, then into the dryer. But as it spun in the dryer, it fell out of the pocket and clinked inside the machine. Gunther had no idea and simply took his clothes and left. A new patron came and washed his clothes in the same washer and dryer. But when he opened the dryer he saw the penny face up at the bottom. This man, William, believed in good luck, and so upon seeing the penny heads up he took it and placed it in his wallet.

William wouldn’t use the penny for now this penny had meant good luck to him. He only kept it in his wallet as a good omen to encounter better fortune in his life. Later that day, William found a dollar on the ground, and he knew his lucky penny had worked. To avoid spending this very lucky penny, William kept it outside wallet and placed it with his keys in his home. Every day as William left he would take his keys and wallet and his lucky penny. The penny continued to bring William good luck, he thought, as life seemed to improve in small ways – kinder encounters with strangers, extra toppings on food, lighter traffic. William kept his lucky penny in his shirt pocket as to avoid spending it.

William absent-mindedly bought a hot dog at a stand and couldn’t hold all of his change in his hand, as the hot dog was in his other hand. So he let the loose change fall into his shirt pocket as he stuffed the dollars in his pocket. William ate the hot dog and then realized his lucky penny had been mixed in with the change. He took the coins out and looked at the currency, seeing three different pennies. He examined them closely, trying to determine which penny was the lucky one. And then he determined how he would know. He took each penny and spun them on the table – the luckiest one would land heads up. If a second penny fell heads up, he would pin them against each other and see between the two which was luckier. He spun the three pennies, and indeed on landed heads up. The second penny landed tails. The third however landed heads up as well. So William spun the two that landed heads up and watched closely. The landed at the same time. One heads, one tails. He knew he found his lucky penny. He didn’t want to be bothered with these other pennies so he left them on the table outside where he ate and walked away. Unfortunately, William was quite wrong. The first penny, which landed on tails immediately, was the penny he was looking for.

The penny sat on the table for hours, untouched by anyone, before a group of teenage boys sat at the table. The teenagers saw a very attractive girl and dared one of them, Pierce, to ask the girl out. Pierce was too nervous to, so on the boys found the penny on the table and flipped it in the air, catching it before Pierce could see it. He bet Pierce if it was heads Pierce would have to ask her out, if it was tails then he would have to. Pierce agreed. It was heads. Pierce was terrified but he approached the girl, Kelly, and asked her out. She said yes – and their relationship lasted; eventually Pierce would marry Kelly.

Before Pierce and Kelly married, while they were still teenagers, they had unknowingly pushed the penny off the table with their food trays onto the dirt. The penny stayed in the dirt for years; no one knew it was there, as it sank deeper in the earth.

A little boy, Todd, had come to play in the dirt outside the restaurant, where the hot dogs used to be sold, and saw the dirty penny. Todd picked it up and put it in his pocket, leaving in there until his mother helped him get ready for bed that night. His mother check the pockets of his shorts and saw the dirty penny, which she left on his dresser for no reason. The penny stayed there on the dresser for several months before Todd’s parents bought him a new dresser, now that he had grown up. But when the moved the dresser, the penny fell off the top and in the corner of the room, where the new dresser was placed. And the penny stayed under the dresser for a very, very long time.

Todd and his family had moved out of the house. The penny on the floor remained there until they did one last sweep of the house, and Todd picked up the penny. He held the penny in his hand and put the penny in his car. The penny traveled everywhere Todd traveled, seeing beautiful landscapes and visiting longtime friends.

The penny was cleaned out when Todd decided his car was too dirty for his liking, and was placed in his pocket with other coins he had lost under the seat. Todd used the coins to donate to a charity at a fast food restaurant, where the penny was given to help those with cancer. And though it was just a penny, the penny helped, in the smallest sense, extend the life of someone very important, Allie. Allie recovered from cancer and went on to start an orphanage, where she could foster children in need of a home.

The penny is somewhere in the world now, possibly in a register or in a jar collecting coins for a special vacation or perhaps it’s in someone’s pocket right now. The penny was used for milk, a sticker, a movie, good luck, a dare, love, curiosity, spare change in a car, and funding towards a cancer patient. The penny has many more days of adventure ahead of itself, but that is just one penny. Who knows what all the other pennies have been up to?