Inflated?

A new coffee shop opened in Koreatown with the unseemly name of Tom and Toms Coffee.  It's a Korean outfit, which makes perfect sense given the location.

Their specialty (apart from coffee and related bevs) are PRETZELS.  Not the Wetzels-at-the-mall-that-make-you-barf kind, but very similar to the real stuff from New York City. I lived on these pretzels when I worked briefly in the Big Apple in 1975.  Reason:  they were 25 cents apiece and that made for a very cheap lunch, where everything else back in the day was about $4.00 or more.

The pretzels at Tom and Toms Coffee are $3.49.  They come with your choice of dipping sauce (cream cheese, cheddar cheese, pizza).  I'm a purist, so i get an 'original' and enjoy it plain. I save the cream cheese (Smithfield, and it's good) for other stuff.  Like bagels.  Which taste kind of like fresh pretzels, come to think of it.  Since these guys are Korean, they might appreciate the lox-on-a-pretzel idea...but I digress.

Are you reading this?  ONE pretzel 2010 (granted, including cream cheese)= $3.49 vs.  ONE pretzel, sans cream cheese, in 1975 = $0.25.

Yeah,I know there's an argument for "well they have more overhead at the coffee shop".  Please!!!!  We are talking outrageous, and what is worse, I am willing to pay $3.49 for this pretzel because of lack of availability.  Fresh pretzels are scarce here. No one else has them.  No one within at least 5 mile radius of Mid-Wilshire/Koreatown.  Century City used to have a kiosk that sold pretzels and churros, but that one's been gone for years.  Now they sell pashmina which, last time I looked, weren't edible.  I once tried to buy a pretzel from a street vendor on Wilshire Blvd., until he revealed he was a prop for a film and couldn't sell me his pretzels.   I turned around to see the crew laughing hysterically.

Which now brings me to the real reason I am writing this.  Shortly after the turn of the  year, the Fed is going to strip the last vestige of any inherent value from our coinage by replacing nickels - made of real nickel alloy that are mostly nickel and copper - probably with zinc flashed with nickel.  It costs the government too much money now to manufacture nickels in their present incarnation.  You might say they are worth the same as a nickel from years ago - i.e. they have retained more value than their counterparts.

Well, that is going to stop.  The nickel will go the way of the dodo, or the way of the quarter and dime of pre-1965, and pennies as well, which are no longer copper, but zinc flashed with copper.

I went to the bank and asked to cash a check and get the proceeds in nickels.  They wanted to know why.  They have no right to ask this, but not being in the mood for an altercation (and I wanted my damned nickels) I told them it's for Christmas presents.  Which is true.  It's my gift to me.  And i nearly cleaned them out of their nickels.

It might be wise for you go to the bank load up on some nickels.  After the change over in January you will have to drive yourself crazy to sort the coins otherwise.  I have been noticing that whenever I get change nowadays, there are hardly ever any nickels given out.  All quarters, dimes and pennies.  Hmmmmm.....

The value of nickels is likely to increase exponentially after Jan. 2011

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