The phrase ‘idle hands are the devil’s tools’ is an English idiom meaning that people are prone to get into trouble when they are bored. Fortunately, if you had idle hands, two ten-cent coins and a chin full of stubble, you could ward away the advances of the devil by engaging in an old recreational activity!

How do you pass the time with two ten cent coins? yg explains in his post What can you do with two ten-cent coins?:

at home, whenever my dad was idle, he would use two coins, usually the ten-cent one, to pull at his sparse facial hair and stubbly chin hair. it was a practice not uncommon among men in the past but a rarity nowadays. when i was older and i had strands of rough hair on my chin, i tried to do it my dad’s way but i gave up because i could not make much progress. i suppose to be deft at it comes with lots of practice. it is not unlike using a pair of tweezers to do the job.

however, not all who have to resort to using coins to do the removal job do not own a shaver. for some, it was something to do to pass their time, like while waiting for a friend to show up or like the taxi driver waiting to pick up his passengers.

Read the rest of the post here. Of course, engaging in such an activity almost certainly meant you had to be a man… you can still see this kind of activity among older folk, although I once saw a youngish taxi driver engage in this activity while he was ferrying me from the airport. Is this a better or worse way than biting your nails?