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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Michael Like a good American, I now confidently present my credit card when I buy rolls for $2.50 at the supermarket, even though Angelika later gets upset when she compares the charge on the credit card statement with a receipt that is often missing. But hardly anyone pays in cash in the USA, except for people who can't get a credit card. In Rundbrief 07/2010, I've previously reported on the pointless American small change, and since then not much has changed.
When paying cash with a bill, I get change back that I never spend again in my life, because I no longer carry coins with me, only bills in my pocket for absolute emergencies. Like, if the financial system collapses and in an apocalyptic world like in the Mad Max movies, only hard currency ensures survival. Therefore, I immediately deposit received coins in a small designated cup when I get home. Once a quarter, I empty the cup and put nickels, dimes, and quarters (5, 10, 25-cent pieces) into a Ziplock bag, which I then take to the card game in our Schafkopf round. I try to offload as many coins as possible to my fellow players and mainly collect bills. The 1-cent pieces, also called pennies, are not allowed by my card-playing brothers and sisters, so I collect them in another Ziplock bag, and when about 500 have accumulated, I take them to the Coinstar machine at the Safeway supermarket.
There, a gigantic machine swallows coins without complaint, counts them with loud clatter, and then issues vouchers after deducting a 12% fee. What remains can be redeemed at the supermarket checkout. That's quite a steep fee, but carrying around all that loose change is really annoying to me. Coins are indispensable as cash, although one could discuss abolishing cents and rounding up or down to the nearest 5 cents. Cash itself is not a bad thing as an anonymous means of payment, but I predict it will soon be abolished anyway, both in Europe and America. The state is simply too interested in knowing who pays what, when, and where.
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