I have, in one short week, acquired a collection of loonies and toonies that you would not believe. I have, on numerous occasions, on being told “$1.36”, or, perhaps “$3.87”, reached into my pocket and handed the cashier a bill plus 36 (or, perhaps, 87) cents in order to reduce the amount of change in my pocket. This strategy is, to put it mildly, failing beyond my wildest dreams.
I have progressed far beyond the “got a little money in my pocket, going jing-a-ling-a-ling” stage; I am at the stage where streetwalkers are considering paying me. Were I to cash in the contents of my right pants pocket, Sudbury would think no more of nickel even if it wasn’t Saturday night. If the seams on the pocket fail, the Citizen will print an extra, “Money Spills On Street; Police Attempt To Track Armored Car”.
Someday, I will begin to recognize these items as coins, valid for commercial and personal monetary transactions. Until then, Ottawans who are being followed by a step-scrape-step-scrape-step-scrape sort of movement should not be concerned - it’s only me.
You’ve just got to be more rigorous in your change-spending regimen, and start including loonies and toonies in your change calculations. If you buy something worth $7.87, don’t just hand the cashier ten dollars and 37 cents, hand them thirteen dollars and 37 cents.
Seriously, if you can remember to spend your nickels then you can remember to spend your toonies. Or stick 'em in a jar and take 'em to the bank every now and then. They’re not that hard to deal with.
Actually, I’ve been having the same problem. At Timmy’s on night shifts, we divide tips at the end of the day, so I end up with ?$4 in pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters and maybe a loony or two every morning. I’ve just started a pile in my room.
I stick them in either my change holder in my car for the car wash, or keep them in a jar at home to buy a pizza when I have enough of them. Pennies go into the penny cup at the till as I refuse to handle them anymore.
I would like to mention here how delighted I am to live in a country whose citizens (mostly) have the capability to refer (most of the time) with a straight face to major monetary units as loony and tuny.
Hmm. We just came back from Montreal and I was completely charmed by the coins and the money - coins are not used much here, and never dollar coins. I love the $2 coin.
Then again, I was charmed by almost everything in Montreal!
Yeah, that’s bugging the heck out of me too. I just keep repeating to myself, “A breakfast tip of a toonie is identical to a breakfast tip of two one-dollar bills.” It just doesn’t feel right.
The bill changer where I work dispenses dollar coins. Of course, the vending machines at work take the coins just fine, but I was a tad worried whether other vending machines would. I worried in vain. I have yet to encounter one that does not take them.
I went to leave a tip at our local Big Boy, and realized that I didn’t have any one dollar bills, but rather had the one dollar coins. Since I didn’t want our waitress to think I was leaving her 75 cents, I handed her the coins as we were leaving and told her they were dollars. She was delighted. (Breakfast is really inexpensive there!)
I love getting a mix of the Susan B. Anthony, the Sacajawea and the new Presidential dollar coins. I don’t love carrying them around in my pocket, though. They can get a tad heavy!
I could live with the American insistence on maintaining the one dollar bill if only y’all weren’t so damned superstitious about your two dollar bill. It drives me nuts that I end up acquiring 98 thousand one dollar bills every time I go there.
Sure, you put a twenty on the outside and it looks like you’ve got a roll, but secretly, it’s only 28 dollars.
See, I’d have the opposite reaction when confronted with one-dollar bills. I’m just buying a newspaper; why would I want to bring paper money into the transaction? I figure that it would be a pain in the ass to fish out my wallet for every little thing. Tip: I keep my change in my left pocket, so that I can use my more dextrous right hand to pick out what coins I need.
Are you some kind of contortionist? Am I missing something? You keep your change in your left pocket so you can fish it out more easily with your right hand?
Gee, Frank, I though this was going to be you ranting about the horrors of all that socialistic universal healthcare and how moving to Canada had given you a new appreciation for the good-old God-fearin’ U.S.A.
