Operation Lucky Penny

Find a penny, pick it up,

All the day you’ll have good luck

• 25 of the brightest, shiniest pennies from my change jar
• one college campus during finals week
• 2 accomplices
• 30 to 45 minutes of my time

This morning at 0900, “Operation Lucky Penny” commenced. My two accomplices and I pulled into a parking space on College Street and proceeded to plant pennies (heads side up) all over campus, concentrating on areas around the student center and the library (where I felt studying students would be found in the largest numbers). We walked around discreetly dropping and strategically placing pennies in obvious places (bright patches of sunlight where they’d be sure to shine and heavy foot traffic areas, etc). I was even stealthy enough to place one penny right on the seat of a bicycle that was parked by the library. The object of the operation was to make people feel lucky—in particular to give them a little shot of confidence as they ventured forth to take their final exams.

Now just to clarify, I don’t exactly believe in luck. I’m not really superstitious, but I for one, cannot resist a shiny penny on the sidewalk. I know a penny isn’t going to help someone do well on their final if they aren’t prepared, but if they are prepared, it might just help a little. Let me explain.

Have you read or seen Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince? There is this little scene where Ron is very nervous because there’s a big quidditch match coming up. At breakfast, Harry gets caught by Ron slipping some Felix Felicis—liquid luck into his pumpkin juice. Ron’s confidence sky-rockets and he does so well that Gryffindor wins the match and Ron is the hero of the game. When Hermione confronts Harry about cheating, he shows her the full vial of potion. He never slipped it into Ron’s drink after all. He just pretended to so that Ron would believe in himself. The real reasons for Ron’s success were his hard work and his positive attitude. He just needed an extra boost to his confidence to help him overcome his nerves.

I’m hoping that after their hours of studying, some worthy students will find a “lucky” penny and will know it is their day to succeed. Was Operation Lucky Penny a success? I’ll never know for sure, but if I had to guess, I would say yes.

Besides, at least a dozen college students received a warm smile and hello from yours truly as we walked around campus on our little covert operation.

Today’s Kindness to Others: 25 shots of confidence for some studied-out students.

The Kindness I Received Today: A stranger at the eye doctor’s playing with Daniel and getting him to stop whining. The man was magic! He went from repeated pleas of “I want to go home” to making happy train and rocket noises in 3 seconds flat.

What did you do today to make the world a better place?