At this point in life I had pretty much figured that pennies where obsolete, until my family and I were out on a normal Monday night grocery run at Meijer. Everybody with a 2 year old who lives within 20 miles of a Meijer is aware of the Penny Ponies that children can’t seem to get enough of, and we were bagging our groceries and making a beeline straight to the Pony for my boy Carson to take a ride on.

That is precisely the moment that a small dose of positive came into our night.

As we walked up I noticed a dad at the check out lane hand his boy a penny. When the boy ran in front of us towards the pony I figured we were in for a small one minute wait while the boy who jumped in front of us took his pony ride. To my slight enjoyment, I watched the boy place a penny by the slot, then run back to his dad. I had no idea what was going on until we stepped closer and saw that there were 2 other pennies sitting on the ledge by the payment slot, then it clicked.

This other boy had run to the Pony and placed a penny by the slot so that my little 15 month old boy could have his fun little ride on the “Penny Pony”. And not only did this one boy do that, but two other children before him had done the same exact thing. Apparently there is a whole group of people in the world who are just running around giving their extra pennies to 15 month old little strangers so they can have fun riding a mechanical pony? I was not aware. But I can assure you, the next time that I am getting groceries I will make sure that my little man Carson leaves a penny on the pony instead of just riding it.

Brian Dokter