Paying in pennies deemed senseless...
Found this on Yahoo News, (H/T to MightyMom):
Penny offense: Man fined for paying fee in pennies
By Claudine Zap
No lucky pennies here: Police have charged Jason West, an aggrieved medical patient in Vernal, Utah, with disorderly conduct. His alleged crime? Attempting to pay a disputed medical bill of $25 entirely in pennies.
The story, reported in the Salt Lake City Deseret News, describes the "penny offense" this way: West, 38, did not believe he owed the medical clinic $25 but came in to pay the fee in person. He first asked the clinic staff if the facility accepted cash payments, and then dumped 2,500 pennies onto the counter and demanded that they be counted.
But West apparently hadn't counted on the clinic calling the police; the arresting officer contended that West's protest served "no legitimate purpose." The charge carries a fine that can go as high as $140--and there's no word as yet on what currency West will use to pay it.
West isn't alone in the ranks of penny protesters. A wise guy in Frederick, Maryland, showed up at the county clerk's office last summer with bags of cash to pay off his tax bill with $966.86 in change.
And a New Jersey school district a few years back punished 29 students who paid for their $2 school lunches in pennies--possibly as a prank--with two-day detentions. After parents protested, the students were pardoned. The school explained that the use of the small change slowed down the lunch line.
But calling the cops? Give me a break! Seems he's not the only childish one here and probably a lot less so than the clinic staff. The cop doesn't get any points either, he could have just noted pennies are legal tender and the coin of the realm then just moved on to other things.
Let the chair polishing beauracrats get the upper hand and they'll always nickel-and-dime the rest of us to death. I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that the man walks on this one as long as he refuses to cave and asks for no quarter. Anything else would make no sense/cents.
Yes bad puns are still legal, no matter how we may wish otherwise.
2 comments:
I remember in the good ol' days when penny's came from heaven or something like that.
Personally, I have no idea why they don't get rid of pennies altogether and stop with the $1.99 cent prices and round it to a solid $2.00 etc.
That said, I could think of other ways to make a statement and that's not it.
Mary Ellen/Nunly, no argument about how dumb paying in pennies is. But doing a smart thing shouldn't be the criteria used to determine if someone should be charged with a criminal offense. If that becomes the standard I'll be doing hard time in nothing flat.
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