Most stores alas treat them($2's) the same way - put under the drawer
to send back to the bank. Pete's Fresh Foods(a few stores in Chicago)
is one of the few places that seem to hand them out in change. Only
got one, but the ones I spend seem to go above the 20's to hand back
as change when needed. That's the slot it was in when I got mine in
change.
Halves seem to have a better chance of going back into circulation.
Oddly enough, this week after buying lunch I got a Kennedy Half
(1971D) in change for the first time in about 30+ years. I'm
convinced that the cashier got it with the previous transaction and
couldn't wait to get rid of it. When I mentioned to her that it had
been quite a while since I had gotten a half dollar in change, she
said that when she got it, she didn't know what it was and thought it
was a dollar coin at first.
Probably spent by one of the posters in here who think it's somehow
"cool" to put damn clad Kennedy Halves along with dollar coins into
circulation. The overwhelming majority of cashiers hates dealing with
coins like those, as they are just a nuisance. Like you said, those
coins only end up being given back to the unlucky someone in the very
next transaction, the great majority of whom also hate getting stuck
with an outdated piece of currency that you can't spend in any machine.