A penny, a nickel, a dollar…

(or a dime). Right?

That was the chant I expected to hear from the street fundraiser yesterday in New York. Over and over again, she chanted, "A penny, a nickel, a dollar…" and then just when the meter demanded "a dime," she said, "a quarter."

It was wrong. All wrong.

And it worked. Precisely because the rhythm didn’t work, the pitch did.