Dollars, Cents and Sense

The machine accepted $20 bills, and a 20-stamp booklet, costing $8.20, was needed to take care of business.

After feeding the $20 into the machine at the Dowlen Road post office, I began to wonder where the change would come out. There didn't seem to be a place for bills to pop out.

And there wasn't.

Instead of the expected 80 cents in change, a $1 bill and a $10 bill, I got the 80 cents in change and the rest in goofy $1 gold coins that I didn't know existed. They clanged loudly into a hopper at the bottom of the machine. I retrieved them and stood there bewildered, staring at them in my hand and providing Assistant Managing Editor Chris Clausen a chuckle as he just happened to walk into the post office at that moment.

Like many Americans, I don't care about $1 coins, and there have been a lot of them over the years.

The first were silver dollars, minted beginning in 1794. Since then, there has been the Seated Liberty, Trade, Morgan, Peace, Eisenhower, Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea dollars, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_(United_States_coin).

Now, joining them, we have the Presidential Gold dollars, which I had never seen before until yesterday at the post office, even though they started coming out of the mint last year.

I thought I'd hit the jackpot in Las Vegas when the machine spit them out. In some ways, they're kind of cool-looking. However, they also look like the coins for the games at Chuck E. Cheese.

George looks rather angry and psychotic here. "WHERE'S MY WIG POWDER!?!?! GIMME MY WIG POWDER!!!"

I suppose the dollar coins are useful for something, such as stamp machines and toll booths, but I feel rather uncomfortable laying 'em on some cashier who probably doesn't even know what they are.

Nevertheless, I want to get rid of all 11 of them I acquired yesterday. I blew two of them on lunch, and tonight, when my kids' "Adventure Club" at the church concludes with the usual offering, the boys will have these gleaming cold coins to toss in the plate, perhaps making them the envy of their peers.

That leaves seven more to dispense. Maybe I'll just stick 'em in the bank, or maybe I'll find curious ways to spend them.

Either way, the next time I need stamps, I'll probably just stand in the long line and get my change in bills.