Getting No Quarter

I wish someone would explain the psychology behind this one. A friend and I were strolling about in the East Village last week; East 9th Street just off Ave. A to be exact (in case you want to check this out) when my companion suddenly swooped down and tried to pick something up from the sidewalk. Springing erect he voiced resigned displeasure, expletive deleted, and I looked down at his quarry. It was a nice shiny quarter but it had been glued to the sidewalk. I kicked at it a little bit to make sure before we ambled on. So the question is, what kind of mind is behind this sort of tomfoolery? What’s the philosophy behind it? Is it just to make people look and feel like idiots? Or, at least, in the eye of the instigator it might be funny but it’s not really such a foolish thing to pick up a quarter is it? It’s a quarter for god’s sake! You can make a phone call with a quarter or buy a tiny bit of candy or, at least, utilize it for something useful. It’s not a penny or a nickel, both of which are fairly useless these days (I still pick them up).

And what about this? The person who did it not only had to waste a quarter but they had to buy Krazy Glue or some other instant adhesive. My goodness, you can buy a jelly donut AND make a phone call for the cost of this “joke.”

Of course we continued on, forgetting all about it (a severely minor trauma in the big old city) until later in the day, when I reached the top of the stairs at my subway stop (in Brooklyn), and there was ANOTHER one. I witnessed three people trying to pick it up, one rather precariously. Holy cow, is this the next big thing from our useless youth? I suppose it’s better than having them spend their money on spray paint but what the heck, ya know?