I had to run an errand today and I found a penny in the parking lot on the way to my car. I stopped and picked it up like I have always tended to do ever since I was a small child, as I was encouraged to do.

I remember always being taught the rhyme, "Find a penny? Pick it up! And all the day you'll have good luck!"

Some years ago now I had a supervisor at work whose husband took this rather seriously and got upset when he found out that their child had found a penny on the ground and later given it to someone else! "No! Don't do that! Those are your good luck pennies! Don't give away your good luck." She got quite a laugh at that. It seems to be a recurring theme of life - wives laughing at their husbands.

Of course, when I was growing up some people always said that if the penny was "face-up" / obverse showing you should pick it up for good luck but if it was "face down" / reverse showing you should not pick it up because that was bad luck.

Thinking about that got me thinking about 2020 and pennies from 2020. I looked - while new and shiny looking the penny I found was from 2013.

I'm wondering if finding and picking up a penny from 2020 will somehow come to be seen as bad luck. If coins from 2020 could ever be seen as a bad omen from a bad time.

It's all silly - I know - superstitious nonsense, the lot of it. But it was amusing think about for a minute as I climbed in the car, tossed that penny in the cup holder and took a pump of my hand-sanitizer. I don't really believe in luck. I believe in being careful and prepared. "Fortune favors the prepared" has been my approach to life for a long time now.