Gaming the penguin

I have a penguin in my office that I received as a gag gift. I believe it was originally intended to be a lawn ornament. It has a hole in the bottom with a stopper which would allow it to be filled with sand to keep it from wandering off in high winds. Why anyone would want to put this penguin in their yard is beyond me (though I can see why they would not want it wandering). However, its architecture makes it the perfect piggy-bank. I cut a slot in its head for coins, and have been contributing to the "penguin fund" off and on for several years.

However, I recently decided that I needed to begin contributing in earnest, wondering how long it would take me to fill the thing and how much money it would contain in the end. So, every day after lunch, I drop the coin change I received from lunch into the penguin. I have filled the base and am about up to the bottom of the plastic wings now.

But here is the gaming part. At lunch I typically buy a salad, paid for by the ounce. So every day I attempt to create a $5.01 salad, netting me $.99 in change. However, yesterday I experienced a catch. If I'm too close to even, the cashiers just round it up. Rather than holding up the entire line by demanding my $.99, I slink off without any coin change, cursing my new full dollar, and the penguin gets nothing.

Apparently this will take both skill and art, but I feel I am up to the task. And so, the penguin fund s-l-o-w-l-y grows.