Well now, howdy-doo, good people! It’s Howe Weird, coming at ya from the heart of East Tennessee, ready to spin another yarn that’ll make you scratch your head and maybe even chuckle a bit. Today’s tale comes to us from down Virginia way, and it’s a testament to the old saying: where there’s a will, there’s a… well, a whole lot of pennies.
Seems like a gentleman in Virginia found himself in a pickle over a speeding ticket. Now, nobody *likes* getting a speeding ticket, do they? But this fella, bless his heart, wasn’t just annoyed; he was downright perturbed. He believed this particular $297 traffic fine was unfair, and he decided to make his feelings known in a rather weighty fashion.
Instead of just writing a check or swiping a card like most of us would, our man decided to pay his fine with 300,000 pennies. That’s right, folks, three hundred thousand individual copper coins! Can you imagine the sheer volume of that? I bet his pockets weren’t nearly big enough, so he showed up at the courthouse with wheelbarrows. Now, if you’re planning any heavy-duty hauling, whether it’s pennies or garden soil, you’ll want something sturdy like a heavy-duty wheelbarrow (paid link). You don’t want your investment spilling out on the courthouse steps, do ya?
So, picture this: wheelbarrows, full to the brim with copper, trundling into the courthouse. The unnamed man wasn’t just trying to pay; he was trying to make a statement about the government and the justice system. And a statement he certainly made! I reckon the folks working at that courthouse had a day they won’t soon forget.
It took several court clerks, probably more than they usually have on hand for such tasks, and hours upon hours to count all those pennies. I can almost hear the rhythmic clinking and the groans as they tallied up coin after coin after coin. I bet they wished they had one of those old trusty calculators from Radio Shack (paid link) to at least help sum up their smaller piles! Imagine the hand cramps, the sore backs, the sheer mental fortitude required to count three hundred thousand individual pieces of money. It puts a new spin on earning your keep, doesn’t it?
In the end, after all the counting and, I’m sure, a fair bit of frustration, the court did accept the payment. He got his receipt, and I’d venture to say the courthouse staff gained a new perspective on creative forms of protest. Sometimes, folks just want to be heard, and sometimes, they’ll use every last penny to make sure their voice rings clear, or in this case, clinks loud.
Check out Coin Counter on Amazon: (paid link)
Original story from https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/us-economy/virginia-man-pays-297-traffic-fine-with-300000-pennies/news-story/d74d1a017e8c7c9c0b0a8f7b7f7e9f8e