Spare Change

One of my pet peeves is being asked for change by the person manning the cash register. If you've been to the Philippines and have done some shopping, you know what I mean. Anyway, I've never really liked receiving coins as change. I hardly use them and they make my wallet super-heavy. What I usually do then is to put all my coins in a can and forget about them, till they're about to get de-monetized. Then, we scramble to spend them on "dirty ice cream," taho, etc. etc.

Not anymore. Quite recently, we've decided to use our coins to pay our parking fees. The malls here, usually charge P20-P30 for parking, even when you already patronize their tenant shops. You purchase. You eat. You watch a movie. And to do all that, you have to pay parking. It ain't really fair.

For weeks now, we've prepared coins (P5, P1, or even P0.25) to cover the parking fee and have been giving them to startled, annoyed, or even courteous parking attendants ("I trust you, sir). We rid ourselves of coins, save some of our "paper money," and get back at all those cashiers (who ask us for change when they should be the ones giving it to us in the first place) and mall operators (who charge you parking fees so you can spend more money in their stores).

What about you, any spare change lying around?