You may not have heard yet, because the news cycle these past few weeks has been crazier than the Facebook posts after Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show. And I’m usually not one to toot my own horn. But recent news has left me just spinning with excitement.
It has finally happened. It’s time to say goodbye to that bitch, the penny. After years of false promises, the US Mint stopped producing pennies.
Maybe you think pennies are sweet. Cute, even. Even I know the phrase “pretty penny.”
Newsflash: it costs three cents to make something that’s only worth one penny. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize the math doesn’t work. The penny’s days have been numbered for a while now. Most people don’t even use pennies. They keep their precious pennies in a jar, at the bottom of purses, and in every crevice of their car. Unlike the forever chemicals coursing through your body, the penny issue is a solvable problem.
Will our lives be forever altered without shiny new pennies in the world? Sure – there will be unintended consequences. Nothing will ever again cost $19.99. We’re going to rely on multiples of 5, 10, and 25. And I think you’ll agree it will be a relief.
Which brings me to the real story: Me. The Nickel. I’m about to be the smallest denomination of US currency that exists. This will continue to be confusing to children, because the dime is so much smaller and lighter than me.
Will people start making wishes with ME, tossing me into fountains around the world? Will there be jars where I can live together, peacefully, with other nickels? Maybe even with some dimes and quarters? Just a jar full of shiny silver? I think you’ll agree that the picture I’m painting here is a thing of beauty.
But what I really want to know is this – will there be songs written about me? Nickel Lane? A Nickel for Your Thoughts sounds so much better than a penny. That was always kind of insulting, I think. I was daydreaming this morning about Lionel Richie singing “Nickel Lover,” and I got goosebumps.
Sure – there isn’t a ton of use for me. Even in the days before debit cards and Apple Pay, you couldn’t make a phone call with me alone. The last remaining coin-operated machines, like parking meters and gumball machines, don’t even register my worth if you drop me in instead of a quarter.
But, friends, things are changing. Once everyone puts their precious pennies away, next to their two dollar bills and Susan B. Anthony coins, I will be ready to take my rightful place in the world.
Those machines that press pennies into souvenirs? What about a pressed nickel machine? Disneyland alone has 21 different pressed coin machines. And, while increasingly terrifying for humans, Florida is a mighty fine place for a coin. Sure, I’m not that cool copper color, but I’d look pretty amazing with the Disney characters pressed into me.
Listen. I know you might not care all that much about this issue. I know that it feels like the world is changing so quickly that you might even feel a little sad to say farewell to your pennies, along with your faith in humanity and your hope for the continuation of democracy. You might even worry, with the exponential divide between the rich and the poor, that you might not even have two nickels to rub together. But you can! You can have plenty if you trade those useless pennies in for nickels! I’m not quite sure why you’d rub them together, but if you need to, you should.
In the meantime, don’t take any wooden nickels.
Sincerely,
The Nickel
PS – if you also read that it costs 13.8 cents to make a nickel, please understand that there has obviously been some sort of mathematical error. And, even if it’s true, it costs tens of thousands of dollars to mine a bitcoin, and most of us wouldn’t know what a bitcoin looks like if we got one at the grocery store!
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Melanie Winklosky is a fiction writer trapped in a grant writer’s body. Melanie won the University of Iowa’s 2025 Write Now Flash Writing Contest, was a finalist in the 2023 Boston in 100 Words contest, and a 2023 finalist in NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction Challenge. Her work can be found in McSweeney’s and 50 Word Stories. Melanie lives in Swampscott, Massachusetts in her recently empty nest with her husband and enormous chocolate lab, cheering on her children, somehow adults.
