Brother, Can You Spare The Time To Count Hundreds Of Pennies For This Groundbreaking Investigative Report?

Come on — they obviously knew something was up when a geeky reporter in his undershirt tried to pay for fast food with several pounds of pennies:

The Daily News sent me out to five quick-serve restaurants to see if they would accept pennies as payment.

Four of the establishments — including a Bronx takeout joint that made headlines for refusing pennies last week — eventually took the legal currency.

But a Bronx McDonald’s would give me no break the day I approached with pockets sagging.

I ordered a Happy Meal, the one that came with four Chicken McNuggets. And a toy (it wasn’t for me). Side of large fries. The total came to $6.36, or roughly 3-1/2 pounds of pennies.

It took me more than five minutes to count them, prompting the cashier to frantically pace between her register and the manager.

The official tipping point came when I reached 612.

The cashier planted her feet under a sign that read, “We are no longer accepting bills larger than $20. Sorry for the inconvenience,” and added another apology.

“We can’t accept that, sir,” she said, looking at the ocean of change on the counter. “We don’t have the time to count it.”

But what makes this story isn’t so much the first-person account of the “dirty metallic reek” emanating from the reporter’s hands as it is . . . wait for it . . . a John Liu sighting! He’s everywhere!

The value of a penny became a national controversy last week following allegations that the Great Wall restaurant in Soundview refused to accept 10 Lincolns from one of its regular customers, resulting in some lawmakers urging fines for restaurants that refuse to accept change.

I went back to the Great Wall, where co-owner Juan Lin happily counted my 400 pennies for pork dumplings with the efficiency of a bank teller.

As she took the change, City Councilman John Liu (D-Queens) happened to show up, saying that I wasn’t the first wiseguy to dump his change on Lin after the story broke.

“This is harassment,” he said.

I nodded sympathetically, then moved on.