Show me the money -- the folding kind, please

I hate change. In my esteem (and if only ‘they’ would ask me about certain things the world would be a happier place) the only substance of exchange should be paper, folding money, moola, greenbacks (if south of the border, or I guess blue, purple and olivebacks in my own bailiwick), money that makes a statement that it is indeed ‘money’.

Coinage reminds me of when I was a child receiving my pathetic allowance. That is, a means of exchange not to be cherished. Back then actual bills held a mystique -- a magic. When a dollar was actually a dollar, then my eyes would light up if such a note were to have been bestowed upon me at a birthday, perhaps. If that same person had given me, say, four quarters, then it wouldn’t have been quite the same. But – a bill! A whole dollar bill!

“We’re in the money – we’re in the money. We’ve really got a lot of what it takes to get along!”

Change. I scoff at change. And, being male I attempt to disregard it as much as possible. It piles up in my pocket and on the top of the bedroom dresser. Excesses of coinage actually cause welts on the fronts of my thighs due to banging against my leg.

I not only scoff at change. I detest change. I want to be like the evil pedophile in Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer and throw handfuls of it at street urchins. By saying I wanted to be like that dude, I don't mean the pedophile part, I just mean the throwing money away part -- just in case somebody got the wrong impression. I also want to chuck my change into the water off a cruise ship so little Samoans can dive among the sharks to try to retrieve it. Primarily, I don’t want to use it as legal tender; as a means of exchange. The trouble is, if you hand somebody a ‘fiver’ for a cup of Starbucks you get goddamn change back. Especially in this silly country. You see, here there is no folding denomination smaller than five bucks. One of the reasons I love going to the US is that you still have dollar bills. If my change contains dollar bills, then it feels like I have put real money back in my wallet. I feel flush.

What happened here was this. A number of years ago some federal government moron (redundant, I know) decided it would be good to do away with dollar and two-dollar bills, and so they did. Nobody was asked about this. They’re the feds, They can rob us every year and also do what they want, like erecting a shrine to fucking Celine Dion, or something equally banal. Anyway, I like to think Pierre Trudeau was behind all of this. I may be wrong, but I like to believe what I believe.

So, those fine old bills were replaced by big mother coins popularly called ‘loonies’ and ‘twonies’. I hate them. All males hate them.

There is a gender difference here in the matter of coinage and change. Women actually count out their change, going through all the pissy little pennies, nickels and dimes to pay for that aforementioned Starbucks. It takes simply hours, or seems to. Wendy will ask me to give her my change so she can pay for our coffees I dip my hand deep into my pocket and, of course, change then spews all over the damn floor. “I hate &%$#* change,” I mutter, audibly enough that my displeasure is apparent. She and the barrista shake their heads in some kind of superior manner, thinking ‘men are such saps.’

Oh, I know cashiers and their ilk like getting change. To that I’ll say, hard cheese. They’re there to serve me, I’m not there to accommodate them, despite the fact I might otherwise like the person.

So, one more thing. When I become king, all coinage will be done away with. We will even have nickel notes, folks. Either that, or get rid of all cash, period and just carry out all our transactions via debit card. That would work OK, too.