I decided to mail a penny to another member of Team FOEcakes. I was already mailing something to this person, and I thought a penny could only improve the package.

But just dropping a penny in there seemed so boring. What could I do instead?

I could stick it on the outside!

...where someone could steal it. Who wouldn't steal a pretty penny stuck to the outside of a package?

And it was such a shiny penny:



A shiny penny can make my day, sometimes. It could probably make a lot of people's days, if they got it into their heads to steal it. The seeds of doubt sown, I nonetheless continued on, and taped the penny to the outside of the package:



Dude... that penny would be in my pocket in seconds if I was a postal worker. And while I'm sure they'd be all the happier for it, my intended shininess-receiver was my teammate, not a member of the U.S. Postal Service. So I used some stronger tape:



Mm. I still wasn't happy. Then I realized - if you ask someone how much trouble they'd go through to get a single lonely cent, most wouldn't do anything. I mean, honestly, what are you going to do with one cent?

It was the shinyness that drew people, not the monetary value of the coin. If I could obscure the shiny, the penny would be much safer.

So I designed a Penny Pocket. It's a method of obscuring pennies you are mailing to people that you want to stick on the outsides of things so that melancholy postal workers will not be enticed into lives of crime.*



The prototype worked well. Then I thought, other people could use this technology to obscure pennies they are mailing to people that they want to stick on the outsides of things so that melancholy postal workers will not be enticed into lives of crime!

The penny pocket could be a public good!

So I made more. This is the basic penny pocket, for those of you who are not into fancy stylings:



This is one that looks like a happy monster with a tail:



This one is a sheep with no neck:



And this one is a stylized goldfish on a royal purple background:



I think I sized these right, so that if you print them out, put some glue on the tabs, and fold them over, you'll have a perfect pocket for pennies.** You will still need a bit of tape for the top if you are mailing them. But postal workers everywhere will be safe.

Update: OH WOW. I submitted this proof, then went straight to bed. And was thirty seconds from unconscious when brilliance struck. I have an even BETTER design for a penny pocket than those you see above!

Behold! It is the team colors penny pocket:



If anybody else wants one for their team, just give me a heads up and I'll load it.

Or possibly wake up tomorrow and delete this update because it is insane. One or the other.

UpdateUpdate: Even more.

Team FOEcakes (our detailed team symbology does not serve us well in this context, unfortunately):

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* Uh, the referent for the 'sticking on the outside of things' part is the penny, not the person. If there are people that you want to stick on the outside of things, why are you wasting your time mailing pennies to them? You should be sticking them to the outside of things, not screwing about with the post - get to it!

** If any of you use one of these, please for the love of god let me know.

UpdateUpdateUpdate:Meredithian receives the penny!