OK. This is just about as good as “Man bites dog.”

    News out of India is that the country is suffering such a severe shortage of coins that business owners are begging beggars for change.

    You’ve got to be kidding, right?

    It seems the problem is that people are hoarding 1 and 2-rupee coins. It’s not that they’re rare. The catch is that the stainless steel in the coins is worth more than the face value of the coin.

    So not only are people hoarding them, they are melting them down to make, of all things, razors. Puhleeze. Grow a beard.

    So scarce are the rupees that shopkeepers are making customers buy more goods to round up the price of the sale so they don’t have to give a rupee in change, or they are giving pieces of candy in change instead of rupees.

    I can see that working in the United States.

    “Two burgers and fries. That’ll be $3 and two Tootsie Pops.”

    Yeah, right.