Picking up the Piec- Pennies

I plop down on my seat, thankful the bus odor is not gag-worthy this morning. I don't need to breathe into my shirt or my hair, which is often the case. Immediately I hear "S'cuze me ma'am. D'yu have a dollar? I dunno wha happen, I lozmy ticket." I look up and tell the slurrer I don't carry cash on me, which is true today and most days. I look around. Of course I'm the one being targeted. It appears I'm the only one who brushed my hair today, that must be how she discriminates the cash holders v. non. She asks me if I have change. Actually I probably do because that's what becomes of my cash whenever I have it. I hand her what I have: probably 20 pennies, a dime and a nickel. She gladly accepts it. For the next five minutes she proceeds to count all the change in her hand, and I can hardly bear watching her count pennies, drop pennies and recount.... I scrounge the bottom of my purse and find a quarter and a dime. Done. I give it to her. Then she starts over with the counting. Pennies are dropping and rolling all over the bus floor. I can see she is having a really tough time leaning down to pick them up so I pick up a couple in disgust. I decide the floor of the bus should be in some top 10 list of dirtiest places ever. I pull out my cell phone and pretend to text ignoring the rest of the pennies that keep falling. I'm not going there again. We arrive at her stop. She has now dropped some coins -- or maybe just one of the important ones -- between her seat and she's having trouble finding it. She tells the driver "Hold'n pleeez." She starts walking toward the front with a wad of coins in one hand, and picking up runaway pennies she didn't realize she lost. I actually grab another one for her in a hard (for her) to reach place under the seat. Let me just say this: It's hard to pick up something as thin as a penny without scraping your finger along the ground. I think I actually got bus floor under my fingernail that time. I hand it to her as she says "Ev'ry one counts." I smile and count the minutes till I can wash my hands again.