From a reader:

are you familiar with the delight that is CoinStar?
mine is in the local supermarket where you lug all your coins, pour ‘em in the slot and it gives you a voucher that the cash register lady will cash for you (minus of course the 9 cents/dollar that CoinStar takes).
but the process is exhilarating for some reason, the clink of the coins, watching your total rise.
search out the CoinStar! i promise it’ll be worth it!

Yes, I am familiar with CoinStar, a company, as it happens, that was founded by a friend of mine at Stanford business school, Jens Molbak. But–with apologies to Jens–why should I pay anybody nine percent to rid me of my cursed coppers? CoinStar is indeed a delight, but only in the way that calamine lotion is a delight. If we could do away with pennies and avoid poison ivy, we could get along quite happily without either.