A Penny So You Won’t Have To Think.
or Loose Change AND Marbles

1/21/2002

Dear Abby,

Recently, you ran a letter written by a distraught woman whose son has been speaking to her from the grave by leaving pennies in places where he knows that she’ll find them. Well, Abby, that letter really struck a chord with me. You see, I’ve recently suffered a loss myself.

My son and I were avid collectors. If it could be collected, you name it, and we’d collect it. Bottles, baseball cards, postage stamps, Swedish erotica, just about everything under the sun. It was “our” hobby. It brought us together in a way that no father and son could ever hope to compete with. And of all of our collections, our favorite by far was our collection of Lincoln pennies.

We’d spend hours just staring at those shinny copper medallions, laughing at ol’ Honest Abe’s goofy face. Then tragedy struck. Oh, I know that you’re thinking that I’m going to say that my son was taken away from me, but that is not the case. No, Abby, if that was only all that happened, I might eventually get past it. After all, everybody dies. What happened was far worse. You see, we lost our prized penny collection at an amusement park.

After reading your column, where the woman described how her son had left pennies for her to find on the floor of a hotel and in go-carts, we realized what had happened to our precious pennies. The ghost of that woman’s son was robbing us blind. Sure, I suppose you could say that it was our own fault for carrying the pennies in our loose pockets while riding the rides and cashing out in the hotel, but after reading that letter, we realized that it could only be explained as the work of a poltergeist.

So, Abby, if it’s not too much trouble, could you please print our letter so that the woman will see our suffering and return to us what her son stole from us. It’s only fair.

Signed,
Penniless in Toronto

Credulity, thy name is Abby.