On having grown older but not being old quite yet.
by earthbound kid on 2006年10月12日 06:08 AM
@ Home / HelloWorldProject / ENTRY28 (edit, history)
The other day, I bought some stamps. The post office was closed, so I had to use the vending machine out front. I only had twenties on me, but the machine takes them, so it wasn’t a problem. Now, I like writing letters, but $20 worth of stamps is a bit much, even for me, so I only bought $4 worth. It worked out though, and the machine gave me my change, but since it’s a US Post Office machine, the change it dispensed was mostly a collection of dollar coins, Susan B’s and Sacagaweas. Like most people, the only time I’ve much interacted with Sacagaweas or given them a lot of thought was right in 2000 when they came out. As it so happened, that day I had the pouch for a Japanese jinbei on me, so I put the coins into that. Walking away from the post office and toward my classes, I couldn’t help but think about how nice the heft of the coins felt in my in pouch. Indeed, the coins bore a strong and welcome resemblance to the sack of loot clutched by a pirate or some other olden type.
“Perhaps, I could arrange a stick for use as a bindle…”
Idle thoughts occupied my time as I went about my appointments for the day. In the afternoon, I had reason to go to the bank. Walking there, I thought, clearly this is a perfect opportunity to enact measures towards a new dollar coin based lifestyle. Leaving Japan has left me without the ¥100 coin’s chrysanthemum blossoms, but Lewis and Clark’s Native American navigator could perhaps be a more than acceptable substitute. The first simple step on my new voyage to the West of exotic, domestic currency would be to arrange for the teller to give me my $100 withdrawal in dollar coins, I thought.
Suddenly, thinking of it, I intuited the hassle for bank teller to dispense the coins for my withdrawal. Pondering further, I realized the inconvenience to merchants, as I would count out, “One, two, three, four…” on to upwards of ten, fifteen, twenty dollars or more, as they try to decide the best corner of the register in which to store the bulky discs, partitioned besides the quarters or over on top of the “real” dollars, and the other patrons tap toes anxious with impatience.
As quickly as that the whole plan was shelved. From hence, the title of the piece.
Related anecdote from Wikipedia:
[Steve Wozniak] is also known as a prankster. He has been known to pay for services using a $2 note from a “pad” of money—he buys uncut sheets of bills from the Treasury and has them bound into booklets; they are fully legal tender despite their perforated edges. On one occasion, this got him into a spot of trouble at a casino in Las Vegas.