We in PA have a 6% sales tax. It's a surprise to get through the checkout line and discover one's bill ends in a zero. Two zeros is a shock.

In NY, when I was growing up, we had a 4% state sales tax, and the local municipalities could levy their own on top of that. 6%, 8%, 7%... which county are we in?

I wouldn't mind eliminating pennies and nickels if the prices with tax were all rounded down, or were exact, but if they're rounded up, forget it. On the whole, I don't want to pay a cent more than I'm billed. A hundred pennies still equals a dollar, even if they cost almost $2.00 to manufacture. A dollar isn't much these days, but it's still more than nothing.

Steel pennies, identical in appearance to the copper ones, were minted in the 1940s at the height of war manufacturing when they needed the copper for other things. I still have a few that my dad kept. We could go back to that.

The elimination of pennies will also do away with an old and charming custom which is already practiced less and less: a single, shiny penny is placed in a wallet or purse given as a gift, as a token to symbolize the wish that the recipient should always have money in his pocket. I guess the coin could be a quarter, but somehow the practice loses its poetry. "May you never be quarterless" doesn't have the same sound, or sense, as "May you never be penniless".

"To give no quarter" would take on an additional meaning, too.