You know what’s wrong with our government? It’s not its ever-expanding reach, it’s monolithic bureaucracy, or it’s lack of a sense of humor. All these things can be forgiven with the appropriate tax cuts, and properly paved roads. The real kicker about our government is that is has no sense of style, it ain’t hip, and its timing is downright poor.
All these shortcomings can be embodied in the new nickel design. (For those of you who exclusively use debit cards, nickels are a form of currency exclusively used in crappy bubble gum machines) The new 5 cent piece was released this past march to commemorate the signing of the Louisiana Purchase.
Their first mistake was picking a tragically boring, if not historically inaccurate design. The U.S. Mint should have commissioned someone to design a scene where Uncle Sam is literally picking Napoleon’s pocket. We doubled our land mass for less money than Donald Trump pays in alimony every month for Pete’s sake! Let’s pay proper homage to that crafty bit of thievery. Then again, we did get Arkansas thrown in to the deal. Hey, at best it was a wash.
What’s worse, the new nickel was released in 2004. As I’m sure you all know from your 9th grade civics class, the Louisiana Purchase took place in 1803. C’mon U.S. Mint, get your act together! We’re Americans, we like nice round, aesthetically pleasing numbers we can give fancy names to. The ‘Two Hundred and First anniversary’ doesn’t quite roll of your tongue like ‘the bicentennial’ does.