We were out for our neighborhood walk this morning when we spotted something remarkable we hadn’t seen in many years. A penny.

There was a time as a child when the sight of a dropped penny was a found treasure. Brings good luck. Plus you’d be one cent richer.

But the days of bothering to pick up a penny are long gone. Beyond the hassle of bending over, now there’s the thought that perhaps it isn’t the cleanest thing to handle, laying there on the street. Who knows where it’s been?

But seeing this shiny copper disk gleaming in the sun made me realize something else… This was the first time in a very, very long time that I’ve seen a penny out there in the wild.

Even those free penny cups next to gas station cash registers are long gone. (And when was the last time I needed to go inside a gas station to pay after filling up my tank?)

Sure, we have some pennies around the house – like in my overflowing metal spare change jar. But thankfully, I haven’t come home with any spare coins to add to this container in about ten years. That’s largely because I haven’t bothered using cash in a long while. At least not in a transaction where I would bother with the leftovers.

“Keep the change,” is usually how today’s rare interactions with paper currency now end. They often involve $10 or $20 tips, e.g., for extra good home service of some kind.

But there it was. A penny on the street. Lincoln Memorial side up. Right by my foot.

In a flash of childhood instinct I was about to stoop over to pick it up. There was the sheer joy of spotting a shiny coin. But then the question occurred to me: What would I actually do with it?

And who dropped it? Why would anyone be walking in the street with spare change in their pocket? And how did it fall out? Perhaps a kid on a bicycle or scooter. Maybe coming back for it soon? There must be a backstory to this penny.

Besides, I still dread having to pack up the couple of hundred dollars or so in coins now overflowing in my change jar to haul them to the bank – where I’ll probably have to do some paperwork penance in exchange.

Whenever I do finally make that trip, it’ll likely be the last time. I don’t reasonably expect to have the pocket change needed to refill it again. And I haven’t decided yet how to re-purpose that fancy tin once it’s empty.

So, instead of picking it up, I merely acknowledged it and smiled. “Hey, look. A penny.” We both readily agreed this was a rare sighting. But, without missing a step, we continued our walk – no richer but no poorer.

Someday that penny may be worth far more as a collector’s item than it’s worth today. Even the new ones are already antiques of a sort.

But still, too much trouble. And my change jar is already full. And its rightful owner may be coming back at any time. Good reasons to leave it there.

Besides, as with all antiques who knows where it’s been?