There I was, weeping dramatically at eighth grade graduation that friends would be parted, and hearing the mother of a friend say, “Oh, don’t you worry, so-and-so will turn up again, like a bad penny.”
A bad — what? I was deeply offended… but alas, it turned out to be true. Adding such a proverb to the steady two, four, six, eight, two syllables of the cinquain underscores how inevitable life sometimes feels.
Historical sources explain that bad pennies were a big problem back in Ye Olden Days before the standardization of the weight of a coin, because coins could be clipped. The term ‘bad penny’ was established enough in English by the late 14th century for it to have been used in William Langland’s famous prose poem The Vision of William Concerning Piers Plowman, written between 1370-90. Just think – that phrase came all the way from the 14th century for someone to say it to me when I was twelve!
“A bad penny always turns up.”
Reunion
Beware!
A crowded room
no guaranteed exit…
The snobby crowd you’d hoped to miss
right…there!