One Hundred Pennies
- Young Ju really wants to try her hand at the lottery, so she's trying to convince Uhmma to buy a lottery ticket—after all, it's only a dollar.
- But Uhmma's really thrifty. So thrifty, in fact, that she saves every penny—literally—and even buys things with her pennies, which totally embarrasses Young Ju because nothing announces how poor and "Oriental" you are than paying with a jar of pennies.
- Anyway, Uhmma finally relents and says Young Ju can go buy the ticket.
- So Young Ju goes and chooses her SuperLotto numbers.
- When Uhmma pays for the ticket, she plunks a whole lot of change, mostly pennies, which, you can imagine, irks Young Ju.
- But that doesn't stop Young Ju from feeling hopeful.
- She and Uhmma go through all the things they would buy with twenty-three million dollars (the amount of the lottery).
- They end up talking about their dream cars—for Young Ju, it's all about a Porsche.
- But not Uhmma. Uhmma likes the Oldsmobile because it's big and can fit a family, plus it can withstand an accident with a Toyota… unlike a Toyota.
- Anyway, point is, Young Ju's head is full of dreams—of things she'll be able to buy and places she can travel to (like Korea).
- Then it's time for the Lotto numbers to be called out.
- Does it go their way? We think you know the answer to this one, but just to be clear, Young Ju's numbers don't win the Lotto.
- Young Ju's ashamed that she just wasted a dollar, but then she starts thinking about how she might pay for next week's Lotto ticket.
- The chapter ends with Young Ju staring at Uhmma's jar of pennies, wondering if it's worth it to use the pennies to pay for another Lotto ticket…