Day 733: Pennies

“Pennies” might seem like a natural follow-up to “Small change,” my topic from two days ago.

And it is, because “Penny” is the name I’ve given to this character:

That Penny:

• is a pen given to me, upon my request, by the server at The Summer Shack, the Cambridge, Massachusetts restaurant my son Aaron, my bf Michael, and I chose for our New Year’s Eve celebration.
• is in contention to be my new profile picture here at WordPress,
• seems valuable to me, already, even though I didn’t pay a penny for her, and
• has been accompanying me everywhere I go, since New Year’s Eve.

Yesterday, Penny came along with me and Michael as we went to the Burlington Mall, to try to solve this problem:

Even though my cellphone looks cracked and broken there, it still did a great job taking photos last night.  As usual, surface looks can be deceiving, don’t you think?

Here’s Penny at various locations in the mall, captured by my cracked cell phone:

 

 

In that last shot, Penny, Michael, and I are at the iFixandRepair kiosk, which seemed like the right place to be. However, I was confused by who the “i” was in the name AND nobody was there to help us.  Do we look disappointed?

Our next stop was Bobby’s  Burger Palace. “Bobby” is celebrity chef Bobby Flay (not pictured), whom Michael and I have seen, many times, on the Food Network. I don’t know if Penny knows about Bobby Flay, but she seemed to enjoy herself there:

  

Penny seems to be saying that — even though that turkey burger looks good and is healthier than regular burgers —  I might want to think about eating more salads, in the New Year. Penny looks like a vegetarian to me and — who knows? — maybe I’ll start being more like her, again.

After dinner, Michael went to get coffee and Penny and I headed off to the Verizon Store. Here’s what we saw on our way:

 

Soon, we were waiting to speak to somebody at the Verizon Store, which is where I bought my cracked phone, a couple of years ago.  We took our time looking around:

 

We became very interested in a Droid phone, which is smaller than the iPhone.

Then, Brady, a Verizon salesperson/representative showed up, telling us:

• it made more sense for me to stick with the iPhone (rather than switch to the Droid),
• it would cost fewer pennies to get a new phone than to fix the screen on my old one (because I was due for an upgraded phone), and
•  I could save  pennies if I made other changes Brady suggested, including how I’m paying my monthly Verizon bills.

Sometimes, when  people make “sales pitches,” I get a little suspicious and anxious about whether I’m going to make the “right” decision. But Brady answered all our questions, was patient,  and made a lot of sense.

Here’s Brady, taking care of ways to save us the most pennies, as we’re getting my new phone:

  

Thanks, Brady!

Here’s a news flash from me and and Penny: for no additional pennies, I can now take and upload pictures on my blog using both of my phones.  As a result, I can show you this side-by-side comparison of the two phones’ home screens, which I took last night (without any help from Penny):

 

Here’s what I notice there: The new phone has a  little more heart.

Time for a video!  How about a trailer (found here on YouTube) from Pennies from Heaven,  a movie I studied quite closely at  Film School in the 1980’s?

And here‘s an uninterrupted version of the song “Pennies from Heaven”:

Thanks to Michael, Brady, Bobby Flay, the Summer Shack, the Burlington Mall, iPhones (and other things that begin with the letter “i”), Steve Martin, Herbert Ross, Dennis Potter, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, all those who deal with pennies, everybody else who helped me write this post,  and — of course! — to you for accompanying Penny and me here, today.