Fall River Gas Station Sign Drops Mind-Blowing Penny Bombshell

New Bedford's Jessica Tyler was in Fall River Thursday morning, when she stopped at the Cumberland Farms on Stevens Street beside Brayton Avenue. She took one look at a sign on the door, and her brain just about melted.

It stated that the U.S. Mint was no longer producing pennies, and because of that, cash change would now be rounded to the nearest nickel. It's true; under the direction of President Donald Trump, the U.S. Mint stopped producing pennies back in May. There is even proposed legislation to round cash purchases to the nearest nickle.

"What a strange sign and time to be alive,” I told her.

The Math Ripple Effect

Her 10-year-old son, Levi DeAndrade – who attends Nativity Prep in New Bedford – immediately started trying to figure out the ripple effect. Levi asked if $10.99 would still exist online, since you don’t technically need a physical penny to process digital payments.

Jessica’s answer hit harder than most math classes ever have.

“I told him, true,” she said. “But if you went to your bank to close your account and you had $19.01 in there, they couldn’t give you all your money. So I think it would have to be that no prices would be able to end in anything not divisible by five. Kind of mind-blowing.”

Think about that for a second:

• $19.99 → dead
• $14.97 → gone
• $7.01 → not happening

Everything would basically have to fit cleanly into increments of .00, .05, .10, .15, .20…all the way up.

Would This Reshape Every Price Tag?

We grew up with pennies being those annoying little copper coins at the bottom of the cupholder. The coin you barely cared about. The coin you’d literally walk past if it wasn’t heads-up (for good luck).

READ MORE: How a Fall River Dog Named Alfie Randomly Became an Overnight Cumberland Farms Celebrity

Now, it might be the coin that accidentally changes everything.

A Huge Shift From One Little Coin

This tiny little shift – the penny just quietly disappearing – could actually force a complete reset of how we label money in the real world.

And to think, this rabbit hole all started with a piece of paper taped to a gas station door in Fall River.