Observations on America - Part 2
If you haven’t obtained some prior to departing on a trip to a new country, one of the first things you do when you arrive is pick up some local currency. Now, everyone knows that much has been said about the ridiculousness of the United States currency. For a start, the notes are all green and look so similar that you never really know how much you have in your wallet and you have to count your change each time to make sure you’re not getting ripped off. On top of that, they have a strange array of coins that ranges from as low as one cent, but only as high as 25 cents.
When I first arrived, I had $33 in notes that I had picked up in Hungary before departing. As I moved through JFK, I searched for a pay-phone as I needed to call my friend who I was staying with and let her know that I was on my way. I finally found a phone, only to find that it accepted only coins or phonecards and that the minimum phonecard purchase was $10. So I found a store and asked if they could make change for a dollar, to which they said no. So I jumped on the subway and made my way towards the subway stop closest to my friend’s house (and as far as I knew where to go) hoping that there would be a phone at the other end. Once I surfaced in Brooklyn, with all my worldly belongings strapped to my back, I had to navigate my way through a tiny little shop to buy a drink to make change so that I could use the phone I spotted just outside. I picked up the receiver and stuck in a quarter, but heard no dial tone. I looked at the receiver, only to find that it was in fact, missing and hung up. I did get my quarter back, thankfully. So there I was, stuck at some random intersection in Brooklyn with no idea where the closest working payphone might be. I took a swig of my newly purchased drink, only to find that it tasted of something that they called Tropical, but which I think more closely resembled what rotten peaches might taste like. I picked a direction and walked, finding another pay phone, only to find that it too didn’t work. In the end, I asked a group of people sitting outside a cafe if I could possibly please borrow a phone to call my friend. Luckily, my first real interaction with New York City folk was a good one and a guy offered up his phone. Now I know that seems to have very little to do with the currency, but I think it’s a good story and if the U.S. had actually been able to successfully implement their dollar coins, I would have had some to start and would have been able to call from the airport.
I have only come across one dollar coins once while I have been in the States, when I received three of them as change from a light-rail ticket machine in Denver. I’m not sure if the fact that Denver is home to one of the seven mints throughout the U.S. has anything to do with this fact, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I spent the first of these dollars buying a few postcards at a store in the 16th street mall. I handed it over and the lady seriously had to study the coin to work out what it was and when she finally realised it was actually legal tender, then wasn’t sure which draw in her cash register to put it in. Under the impression that if I tried to spend one of these coins elsewhere, it might actually be rejected I used the next one to purchase another light-rail ticket from a machine which proudly stated that it accepts Presidential Dollar Coins. Sweet I thought and stuck it in, only to have it disappear through the slot and not show up as a credit. So, a dollar down, I straightened out a few dollar bills and shoved them in the slot - both were credited without a drama. As for the last coin, well I kept it as a souvenir as it seems to be a great example of legal, yet pointless currency.
Because of the high usage of the dollar bill, all vending machines accept notes, which I find a bit of a novelty since a vast majority of those back home take only coins. This novelty though, can sometimes lead to frustrating games of back and forth with the note slot as it rejects your note for not being perfectly flat or not having that particular President’s head pointing in the right direction. I must say though, that I have been impressed with how few times that has actually occurred. It does obviously tend to occur though when you are either in a desperate need or hurry for the product which sits there as the unattainable, bathed in fluorescent light on the other side of the glass, like the bottle of water you need when you’re dying of thirst and about to jump on a 2 hour bus ride. One thing I find interesting though is that all these vending machines state that they don’t accept $20, $50 or $100 bills. I understand this, as making $98 change in quarters could be quite a lengthy and bulky process, but I have actually never even seen a $50 or $100 bill in my two months travelling. Maybe that’s more a reference to my lack of funds and low value of transactions though.
Once, early on my trip I asked what I considered a fairly reasonable question to an American - “A dime is ten cents right?” to which he replied “Of course it is, what else would it be?”. I can tell you that this guy had never been outside of the country and so had clearly never experienced currencies where 10 cents was simply known as 10 cents or where in fact they didn’t use such things as dollars and cents. Why I still consider the question to be a reasonable one though, is because the U.S. mint, in their infinite wisdom have decided that the coins they produce do not in fact require a number on them, but words. This means, that for anybody that hasn’t been using the currency a little while, they can be embarrassingly caught out at the cash register, trying to read the value of the coins they have in their hand. My biggest issue though, was that I came to be studying a dime and found that in fact it didn’t say ‘ten cents’ (as opposed to the ‘one cent’ and ‘five cents’ on the respective coins but I hadn’t realised that yet) but it says ‘one dime’. Worth the question right? And why the inconsistency? If they chose to write ‘one dime’ on the ten cent coin, why didn’t they write ‘one nickel’ on the five cent coin?
At least the Canadians have to come to their senses, culling their one and two dollar bills in favour of coins and being kind enough to print numbers on the coins. They also have different coloured notes for each denominiation. What a novel idea! Thank you Canada.
