It’s a fairly accepted nugget of knowledge that the American government always knows what’s best for us.

    -Often time they’re probably right: it’s mandatory for automakers to install seatbelts.

    -Sometimes they’re wrong: playing poker on the internet is morally unconscionable, yet lotteries and gambling in Vegas is cool.

    -More than a few times, they’re just plain asinine: it is unlawful to sell a toilet in the US for installation in a residential property that uses more than 1.6 gallons per flush

Then there are the things I’m not sure about. Most recently involves the formal introduction yesterday of America’s newest coin series: The Presidential Dollars.

Dollar coins have never really been successful (Eisenhowers maybe withstanding). Susan B’s were a complete flop. This was/is widely attributed to the fact they are almost the exact size of a quarter. Sacagaweas (Sacagaweaii? Don’t think I didn’t have to look up how to spell that) were the next brazen waste of taxpayer dollars...no pun intended. Exactly the same, but golden tinged instead of silver. Makes me want to frucking scream. There is a reason Eisenhower dollars and Kennedy halves are/were successful....A DRUNK PERSON COULD DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN THEM AND A FRUCKING QUARTER!. This would seem to be an easy lesson to learn, but yet again the new presidential dollars are THE EXACT SIZE AND SHAPE OF A FRUCKING QUARTER!

At this point I could go off on a diatribe about why Americans will never display widespread acceptance for dollar coins in general. I might mention tradition, complacence, or strip clubs. I may wax poetically about framed pictures in Mom-n-Pop businesses displaying “Our First Dollar,” but I ain’t going to do it. Instead, I’m going to share a story of the last time I tried to use a dollar coin for a cash transaction:

I get up really early for work. One day about two years ago, I had to mail some bills. The post office is on my way to the Bad Place. As I needed stamps to mail said bills, I bought them out of the Post Office’s 24 hour vending machine with a twenty. Change was delivered in the form of Sacagaweaii. I sigh, scoop up the coins and leave. Three miles down the road I decide I want to get an Egg McMuffin extra value meal. I pull into the Arches and place my order at the speaker box. The charge is something like $4.33. I pull up to the window and give the English-inhibited cashier a dollar bill, three Sacagaweaii, a quarter, a nickel, and three pennies. I could not have introduced more pandemonium into the restaurant if I’d thrown a live badger through the window dressed in a white silk jumpsuit with it’s fur combed like Elvis Presley’s.

To date, that just might have been the best dollar for dollar entertainment I’ve ever received.









Post Script:  For those counting, this is the second post in a row I've managed to mention strip clubs.