Americans are rallying around that humble symbol of frugality and simplicity, the penny. A survey done in the wake of a congressional proposal to do away with the coin shows 62 percent of Americans oppose its artificial demise.

An even larger number, 77 percent, harbor dark suspicions that doing away with the penny and requiring merchants to round prices up or down to the nearest nickel would result in more rounding up of prices than rounding down, a sneaky way to increase prices.The General Accounting Office (GAO) agrees and issued its own report recommending the penny be retained, saying there is no economic reason for it to retire.

Americans like pennies, even though there's little enough to buy with them anymore. It could even be said that we, as a nation, love pennies. Why else would we stash such huge quantities of them in jars, ashtrays, drawers, under sofa cushions and in the bottoms of our pockets and purses?

We treat them casually until the government threatens them with extinction. How many people (except Depression-era survivors and avid collectors) bother to stoop down and pick one up off the street? Many stores now have them literally for the taking, putting out a cup of pennies for those short one or two for a purchase. The reciprocal is that if you get a couple back, it's easier to drop them in the cup for the next person than to lug them around in a pocket.

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Pennies are symbolic of thrift - "A penny saved is a penny earned" and so on. It's unimaginable that in a few decades we might be explaining to the grandkids how we allowed pennies, like the dodo bird, to fade into extinction.

What would elementary school kids trying to learn what 1 million looks like do without pennies to pile up?

And who wants to head back to school in September wearing a new pair of nickel loafers? Speaking of loafers, what would penny pitchers do to while away the hours? Penny pinchers would be adrift, coinless, on a numismatic sea of nickels and dimes.

Next thing you know, that harebrained idea about replacing the dollar bill with a one-dollar coin will crop up again - Whoa! It already did? No! Who suggested it? Obviously: The same congressional committee that thinks we're ready to get by in the world lacking common cents.

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