Four of them go in the diet Coke machine in the break room.

One of them goes with a couple of dollar bills for a cold beer.

With eight of them, you can buy almost a gallon of gas to get to work on payday.

The mania over state quarters is reaching its crescendo around here, as a committee of experts prepares to decide our fate -- forever.

The fact that we are having a committee in this, the Equality State, is I guess a good thing.

Each state is responsible for submitting a design, but each state can decide how to choose a design on its own.

Apparently, there is someone out there within our borders who does not automatically think the buckin bronc should be on our quarter.

This distresses me more than I can possibly express in these few inches.

There is just really nothing else that could possibly represent us as well as that horse pointing down with his rider pointing up.

It is Wyoming.

Okay, Devils Tower is here and Yellowstone is here and antelope are here, but so is road construction and I don't think we want an orange barrel on the back, do we?

Will I use quarters if the horse is not on ours? Well, yeah, unless I can't afford quarters by then and am reduced to gathering nickels for the gas tank.

But trust me, shoving 20 nickels in the diet Coke machine is not a great use of my time. I've done it.

And stacking 20 nickels neatly on the convenience store counter to pay for gas probably wouldn't be appreciated by the line of guys stacked up behind me in the morning waiting to pay for their liters of Mountain Dew and cellophane-wrapped breakfast.

I am sure the committee, under the direction of Jack Rosenthal of Casper, will take a reasoned approach to the selection.

They've asked for suggestions to be written in 50 words or less.

Here are three -- pick the horse.

*THINGS TO DO: Having nothing better to do on a gorgeous really early Saturday morning, I decided to drive Wyoming Boulevard from Evansville around to CY Avenue. The day I drove it, the construction project was really just getting into full swing. There were concrete barriers in place to divide the traffic lanes. Big concrete barriers. And because they encroach on previously available driving space, new white broken lines have been painted to determine laneage.

Concrete barriers to the left, old white lines and new white lines to the right were better than an IMAX movie for this gal.

Two days later, construction began on the section of CY Avenue on which I drive at least four times a day, usually much more.

I thought perhaps I could devise a line of things to do while I wait in the traffic that would be useful to share. Skinny Son said WyDOT would not be appreciative of my humor, but I've been in trouble with that group before. So I've deleted from the list things you do while taking your hands off the wheel.

Instead, I'm suggesting you just leave the vehicle altogether.

When you're eastbound, like five minutes before the morning bell rings at Natrona, you could probably slip into Our Lady of Fatima and say a decade or two on the beads.

If you want to multi-task even further, you could then race into Safeway and buy a month's supply of groceries.

Then you could get back in your car and traffic would be at the same spot it was when you left.

As I said about the quarters, we really have no choice. These projects, too, shall pass.

Casper Inside editor Sally Ann Shurmur can be reached at (307) 266-0532 or sallyann.shurmur@casperstartribune.net.