President Yoon Suk Yeol is in his office playing solitaire on his Windows 7 computer. A light flashes on his desk phone, a message from his assistant, Miss Jeon.

"Yes?" he says, leaning over an pressing the speaker button.

"Better zip up, Mr. President, Minister Kim will be here in a minute."

President Yoon, goes back to his computer and closes down the solitaire window. Behind it are important looking documents that Miss Jeon has left open on his desktop.

Zip up? He's not sure what she means, but he knows she's making fun of him. It bothers him, but he is not sure exactly what about it is that bothers him. He would usually ask Miss Jeon about such things, but..

He absently goes back to open the solitaire window again, but is interrupted by the door flying open.

Minister Kim, of the Ministry of Strategy and Finance opens the door, without knocking. "Mr. President."

"Yes?" It doesn't seem right that he would walk in without knocking. Hopefully Miss Jeon will reprimand the Minister about that.

"What about the coin?" asks the Minister. "We want to take it out of circulation."

"The 10 won, right?" Yoon asks. Maybe he doesn't need Jeon for everything.

"Yes."

"We can't. The Americans still have the penny."

"Who cares? If America jumped off a bridge, would you?"

"What bridge?"

"Mr. President. Nobody uses it. It costs more to produce than it is worth. Only one tenth of the coins in circulation are used, and those fewer than 2 times a year on average. The yearly administrative costs of keeping it in circulation approaches 3% of its value."

"But the Americans– "

"Don't matter, Mr. President. It isn't useful. Nobody contests this."

"Costco still uses it."

"We can't justify keeping it in circulation because one foreign company uses it as a tally for the items in a purchase."

"Send a report to Miss Jeon." Yoon says. The minister is using too many words.

Alright. While this is the likely scenario playing out in the halls of power, I just don't know why we still have the 10 won coin. Costco is the only place I have used a 10 won coin in the last 10 years. It is not enough that they force you to use cash, they also go and price everything with at 990 on the end so every time you go there, you come home with a stack of 10 won coins.

But its the only place I can get bagels, so every week or two, I have another stack of 10 won coins to leave somewhere.

For years I have been piling them in stacks on the stairs between the 1st and 2nd floor of our apartment building.

Whenever I would go past with Lucy I would point out how the 10-won Monster had been at it again. Only recently, I put them there as we were walking past, and she said in disbelief "It's been you this whole time?"

I thought she knew all along.

The new building manager actually cleans though. And the coins I place on the stairs disappear within a week. Its not so fun piling them up there anymore.

So the 10-monster has moved.

I've started piling my 10 coins on the sill over Professor Choi's door, two offices down from mine. I wonder how long it will take him to notice. I hope when he does, he brings it up to President Yoon. I would do it myself, but I don't know how to do things here in Korea.