I bet we could fill 5 pages of examples of people being completely and totally unaware that there are actually other people on the planet, and we’d all like to use the public spaces. There’s the stroller people who always manage to park the strollers slam in the middle of where people are walking through. There’s the shopping cart parkers who seem to think they are the only people in the store, so they will leave their cart in the middle of the aisle so nobody else can get past. Why should they move it? There’s nobody else on the planet and they have all day!
It’s rude and inconsiderate to be sure. But I don’t think it’s willfully rude. People are just oblivious and were either never taught or have forgotten any lessons about sharing (space). Empathy and compassion are dead.
More relevant to the OP: I never spend change. It just gets dumped into my purse, on the rare occasions when I actually pay for something in cash. I prefer to use my debit card (for which there will NOT be any fees, thank you Credit Union ;)) because I find it easier to track how I’m spending that way. When my purse begins to weigh approximately more than me, I dump all the change into jars at home. I probably have several hundred dollars in change at my house. One day, I will have nothing better to do than convert that money into paper.
A couple weeks ago, I was approached by a panhandler. She started by complimenting me on my outfit (or something) and then asked if I had spare change. Note: I have a strict “no giving to panhandlers” policy. Because this woman started with a sincere-sounding compliment, I dug into my little change compartment in my purse (without looking) and handed over whatever I came up with. No idea how much I gave her, but it was probably a few bucks. She was really grateful and thanked me. Haven’t seen her since, so it’s not like she made me for a mark and started hanging out at that location waiting for the spare change gravy train to pull into the station.
Another anecdote: My mother will become one of these little old ladies. My aunt recently died and left behind so much change that my mom couldn’t pick up the boxes. (I think there’s like, shoeboxes full of coin. Several. Egad.) My uncle advised mom to take it to the bank for conversion. But my mother insists on counting every penny first. She thinks there might be some rare valuable coinage in there, which is possible. I can’t wait to hear what the final total adds up to.
I don’t know what it is, but here’s my anecdote: Two months ago, I was checking into a Ramada Inn, and there were three elderly folks ahead of me who were paying for a room that the three of them were sharing. They were splitting the cost three ways, and each one paid their exact share in cash, down to the penny (or however it rounded).
I have a hard time getting too upset over this. I’ve watched various relatives age, and seen normal, competent people gradually lose their ability to function and in some case, become quite odd.
In part, I think it’s being retired and having an empty nest, they forget how rushed they used to be. And having less to do, small things gain exaggerated importance in their minds–the “get off my lawn, you damn kids” syndrome.
So when faced with an old, slow person ahead of me in the checkout line, I remember that I’m going to be old all too soon.
I think the real rudeness is in the people in line behind who get impatient and in a hurry. Slow down, will you, exercise a little tolerance. Some day you, too, will be old and slow, and the world will have changed in ways that seem ludicrous to you but normal to the younger ones around you. Practice a little patience and lovingkindness.
And bless you, Eve, for thinking of your Mom when you see an elderly person losing independence. I think of mine all the time. It’s so hard to see parents decline, and see the appallingly rude people in the stores brush past older people who might lose their balance and fall if pushed.
It has been alluded to, but for some of those little old ladies, that handful of dollar bills and purse full of change accounts for one-hundred percent of their funds until the next social security payment. They may not have that extra bill that would make your life more pleasant, and as a result, have to count out every penny to make what little they have last (or to afford the purchase at all).
Sometimes I pay with change, but I have the exact amount ready before the cashier is ready. I enjoy computing the value of my cart this way. If I’m off I can pull out bills instantly. What bothers me is when these women don’t even make a move for their purse-checkbook-change until everything is bagged and the number comes up. It’s like they thought maybe they would be the 1,000,000th customer and everything would be free.
Luckily, even babushki and all but the most hard-nosed Russian clerks can’t be arsed to deal with anything smaller than 5-kopeck coins. I’d have never been able to buy anything in the country otherwise.
I’m afraid I’m turning into one of “them”, picking change out of a separate coin purse. It’s because I either have a big bill they may not be willing to break (say, a $50 bill for a 79 cent candy bar) - I plan to shop elsewhere later and use the big bill there. Or - I count out exact change because I have one more stop, I’m low on bills of any amount, and I don’t want to (at my last shopping stop) have to pay for, say, a six pack of beer with four dollar bills and handfuls of change. If I could just save one more paper dollar bill to add to the planned six pack purchase, I don’t feel like an alkie who’s been looking for beer money under couch cushions. Flourish five ones and a handful of change, that’s OK.
Today, I had someone pay for a 2 dollar cup of coffee with a 50. Who even gets fifties from the bank? Whatever. I don’t give a shit if people want to pay with exact change. Just decide if you’re going to aim for that goal before I hit anything on the screen and the cash drawer opens. If I have to do math to determine your change, we’re all going to have a rotten time.
When I didn’t have a bank and had to get my checks cashed for actual CASH, I’d get 50’s and 100’s. Sometimes it really sucked to have to try to break one of those somewhere.
you think you might have exact change handy and its making a mess in your purse, bag, pocket, shoe, bra, whatever, so you reach for it, but its not EXACT change, so you keep searching because the whole purpose is EXACT change, and you can hear hear it jingling, so you keep digging, but then you realize that its not really worth the effort, but DAMNED if you can give up the search because you know, without a doubt, it can be found and you’re not going to beat by something like exact change any your unorganized bag (which begins to open up a whole nother’ can o’ worms right at that moment, but intel duo core processors have yet to be installed in a human cranium and the whole process locks up like granny on opioids), I mean Im supposed to be smarter than change and my unorganized bag, right?
So at this point, the only answer is a tranqualizer dart, nekkid Antonio Banderas walks by, or actually finding the elusive EXACT (HELL YEAH!) CHANGE.
Buy something that most people don’t pay for with pocket change?
50s have legitimate uses - making large cash purchases, and waving around to make people think you’re a big-shot, for instance. Emptying the cash drawer at the coffee shop is not one of them.
quoted for truth, both of these, If you don’t die young, you will probably be the little old man or the little old lady annoying the young people of the future. have a little patience in the hopes that people will have patience with you when you need it. As Pogo famously said " We have met the enemy, and he is us"
It isn’t always old people, but old people do seem to be the most oblivious to whether or not there are people around or behind them.
Age is not an excuse to stop paying attention to the world around you.
If you are not capable of being aware of the world around you, then it isn’t the responsibility of the rest of the world to accomodate you. At that point you present a danger to yourself and others and it is your responsibility to take whatever steps are necessary to correct this. Driving and drivers licenses is only the tip of the iceberg.
This makes no sense to me at all. You have jars of change (and your mom has shoeboxes full of it) just sitting there waiting for some day when you’ll have time to lug it down to the coinstar. This is hundreds of dollars just sitting there, but that nice old lady who pays with exact change has actual stuff, rather than boxes and jars of coins. She doesn’t have to lug anything anywhere. That seems like the smarter move to me.
Also, there’s a pretty good chance that someone on social security simply can’t afford to leave hundreds of dollars just sitting around in a jar. A lot of people can’t afford to do that these days.