So I climb aboard the #8 bus to Seattle Center via Cap Hill and as I sit down I notice an assortment of coinage on the floor. Being hot on the heels of The Great Seattle Times Penny Experiment, this was just too good. I stifled a giggle so as to not arouse any suspicions that yet another mad vagrant made it onto the bus. I look at the floor. I look at the pennies. I must photograph this, I think to myself.
Only problem was, there was someone sitting next to me.
It then occurred to me that someone sitting next to you on the bus taking pictures of the ground might arouse even more suspicion than the aforementioned giggling, so I paused. My seat-mate didn’t seem like the type to go postal if I tapped her on the arm, so I did so.
“Excuse me…”
She removes her earphones.
“Yeah?”
I was going to take a picture of the floor, and I noticed your foot was there, and wanted to see if you minded…”
She laughs.
“Oh, no i don”t mind…”
I smile.
“Awesome, thanks. I didn’t want you to think I was some creepy bus-perv with a foot fetish…”
She laughs again. Asks:
“Can I ask what you’re taking pictures of?
“The pennies on the floor…”
She clasps her hands over her mouth and gasps…
“Oh, I’m sorry…I dropped those earlier…”
I say,
“Oh, no no no please, this is perfect; i just need to blog about this…”
“yeah…” she says. “I dropped them all when I sat down, and was going to pick them up, but thought ‘fuck it’. ”
“You have no idea how perfect that is…” I say.

So, there is photo #1. i hope you enjoyed it.

Photo #2 and accompanying (albeit less entertaining) narrative:

Phil and I had decided to take the Great Penny Experiment one step further. We scattered the pennies on the floor between our cubes as usual, but Phil had other plans. He kidnapped David’s can of Mandarin oranges in light syrup (David had been trying to pawn them off on us for days; no one trusted them, so Phil thought he was justified in absconding with them) and strategically placed them alongside the discarded coinage to see if people would bend down to pick up the oranges, but not the pennies.
I must add that by now, most of the advertising floor is onto us with the whole penny business and as such they pretty much disregard any weirdness going on in our row of cubes. This proves challenging to our experimentation and we’re considering relocation.
So, nothing spectacular to report on the oranges vs pennies front. I was keeping a tally at one point. i think at last count it was oranges: 3, pennies: 0, since those who opted for the oranges didn’t actually get to keep them. (We told them it was for the good of science and mankind and if they really wanted oranges they needed to get their own).
Turns out we were doing them a favor.
As the day concluded we gave up and I opened the can to nosh on them a bit since I had forgotten my lunch. Shared with Phil. He got pissed. They tasted like ass.

Phil has now built up an arsenal of pennies in his desk and has resorted once again to using them as projectile weaponry (most notably at me) as the experiments seem to have become fruitless.

voulez-voulez vous find a penny pick it up, then all day you’ll have…mandarin oranges.  But not really.