The Florida and Ohio State victories last night clinched the victory in this year’s NCAA tournament pool for my roommate. This is the third year in a row that he’s won (10+ people every year), so now he’s insisting that he actually has a knack for filling out a bracket. I contend that being good at picking a 64-team bracket is like being good at rolling dice. His position is unwavering. Therefore, vengeance must be had.
So how much does a large container filled with 1000 pennies weigh? Is it too much to lug down to the bank in one trip? Maybe I could give him a quarter a day for the next 40 days. You guys got anything really diabolical?
I did some looking and according to this site a penny weighs 2.5 grams. So, 1000 would be 2500 grams which is about 5.5 pounds.
Math is my big weakness, so I could be off. But, if I am right, 5.5 pounds is not outrageously heavy and would be a really funny way to pay a bet (as long as you weren’t trying to pay me, that is )
Ten dollars in pre-1982 pennies have a mass of 3.1 kilograms.
Post 1982 pennies? 2.5 kilograms.
(About 6.8 and 5.5 pounds respectively).
Are stamps legal tender? If so, how about going to your post office to get 1,000 1¢ stamps?
How about those coupons you see on jars? Don’t they say cash value 1/20 of a cent or something like that? Now that would be somewhat inconvenient for him.
Of course, keep in mind, that you don’t want to pursue an activity that might take several weeks that will only cause your friend just a few moments of inconvenience. (Unless you have a very vengeful mind BWA-HA-HA !!!)
Wow - looking at this in preview, a lot of other answers have appeared.
And Shamrock, that figure is for post-1982 pennies. (see above)
If he is supposedly so great at gambling, give him a $10 chip at a casino here in Las Vegas. That way, you have paid the debt, but the only way he can cash it is to actually go to that specific casino in Las Vegas - otherwise the chip is worthless.
So, for instance, to get use out of his $10 chip here he would need to buy a round trip air ticket to Las Vegas and at least one night’s stay, plus food and drink - yeah, that sounds like a deal to me.
Hide nickels in various places around your city (taped to the underside of a mailbox, suspended from a string inside a sewer, etc.) and give him a treasure map.
Ooh! Even better. $10-equivalent chip for the Casino at Monte Carlo. It sounds nice until you realize it costs more than $10 just to get in (unless you’re staying at one of the connected hotels). Throw in the $750+ for round-trip tickets (from LAX), and it’s effectively worthless.
Imaginative though some of these replies are, you should also consider the time and effort required to implement them. After all, if you spend a hundred bucks’ worth of time and effort to pay back a ten-dollar bet, on whom does the joke end up?
The “epoxy” gag is quick and easy, for example, but you’d have to shell out for the materials. OTOH, the “hide nickels” gag is cheap but would take a long time to implement.
All told, the best bang for the buck would probably be the “big jar of pennies” gag. Unfortunately, that one is kind of old and stale…
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