I learned a basic survival skill early in life, like most of you readers. Recognizing denominations and counting coins in my home currency. And when coin sizes changed over and over, I still managed to keep up. It’s irrelevant that I suddenly forget how to count or read numbers at a checkout line.
So, when digital payments took off in India, I embraced it. I was a woman liberated from the weight of coins.
When travel became affordable, I found that the drama with coins went with me. You see, at the end of a two-week trip, I pulled out my fat coin purse at a restaurant. Despite feeling a modicum of shame at having accumulated pennies, dimes, and dollars en masse, I was desperate. My luggage was already on the verge of exceeding the weight limit. The last thing I needed was weight of coins that I couldn’t use back home. So, I spread the coins on the table, sorted them into piles, and looked pitifully at my friends to help me get rid of them.
On another trip, I was paying for some medicines. I was proud of myself for having used coins when the lady at the counter pointed out that I gave her a dollar instead of a ringgit. The mortification can’t be described with words.
In the last few months, I hit a low or high, whichever way you look at it. The collection of dollars and cents built up until my purse started to show signs of splitting open. So, I generously gave out coins to my nieces. I donated some to my sister to unlock carts. When that did not help, I left a handful at home to lessen the weight.
On a few occasions, my sister helped me lessen the load, while laughing. Well, at least someone was having fun. From time to time, I braved the ‘imagined’ stares of fellow shoppers while paying for things. At one point I did manage to reduce the number of coins. Then I visited a local fair where a shopkeeper handed me twenty dollars worth of coins! I was again walking around with coins jingling in my purse.
Then, one day, four months into my stay, I discovered a way out.
Self-checkout cash counters! Counting the coins? I did not need to do that anymore.
The coins disappeared one by one in the coin slot, and my bill reduced a cent and a dollar at a time – ah, the best feeling in the world.
Now the coins don’t scare me. That is, until I return home and face whatever new coin the government has released that poor hapless citizens like me can’t tell apart without thick prescription glasses.
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