Funny Money

    Somebody gave me a traveler's check the other day, and after I figured out how the hell to process that bullshit, it got  me thinking about all the various ways people have tried to pay their bill.  I mean we all know old people can be cheap as fuck, and teenagers tend to just pay down to the penny because they don't know any better, but it's so much more than that.  Like, you know, this bullshit:

What am I supposed to do with this? No...really. I want to know.

Somebody just left my former co-worker a pile of Canadian coins once. I mean...why leave anything? What the fuck am I going to do with Canadian coins?    Fuck that shit and leave nothing. Because this is what we do with Canadian coins. Tape it into the bitch book.  Another time I had a dude pay everything but two dollars of his bill in legit, American money, tell me he was out of American cash, and give me a Canadian 5 dollar bill to cover the rest.  Because that helps me.

Foreign money done right: I recently had a guy leave me a twenty percent tip in proper money, along with a Euro. For good luck, I guess? I don't know. But now I have a cute little Euro in my change pocket and that's kind of fun.  I mean, if you want to unload a foreign coin or two on me, I guess I don't really care as long as you pay your bill in legal tender first.

Loose change and foreign coins aside, the best/worst thing that ever happened to me was when somebody paid his bill in pennies.  Straight up.  A few summers ago (I think it was 2011) I was working a lunch shift and had a guy who was a little twitchy sit at one of my outside tables.  He immediately emptied a large bag of coins onto his table, and though he ordered, he kept insisting that I didn't bring his food until he was finished counting.  He was really intent on his counting and kept meticulously organizing these coins, so at first I thought he was either preparing to roll them, or maybe he just had OCD.  However, towards the end of the meal, THIS was laid out on the table for me:

Five fucking dollars in pennies. 500 pennies.

And wanna hear something fun? This wasn't even the entire payment. Three years later, I remember the exact amount of the bill because the whole situation was so odd.  The bill was 22 dollars and some odd cents.  He laid out five dollars in pennies. He then told me that he thought he had a twenty on him, but he didn't so he had to go get it and he'd leave us his apartment keys as collateral. So for those of you that are up on your math skills, this means a full payment of 25 dollars, which is a less than three dollar tip, and also...fucking 500 pennies.  Anyway, he did end up coming back with the 20.  However, in the meantime I'd made everybody aware of the penny payment, took a picture of my phone, guests were pointing at it etc. So when he came back to drop off the twenty and get his keys, he saw some people looking at the pennies, and got all indignant that he was being mocked or whatever, and proceeded to tell us:

"You know, in Brooklyn this would be considered ART!"  

Fucking take that shit to Brooklyn then.

My bank cashes in coins for free, so I ended up putting all the pennies into a couple of to go soup bowls at the end of the day and lugging them home with me.   That shit was heavy, but I didn't know what else to do with it.

In conclusion:

1) Pay in American money

2) Tip in American money or don't tip at all

3) If you must pay in coins, at least use quarters so I can do my laundry

4) Don't ever pay with those godawful fucking annoying gold dollar coins.  You can't use them in vending machines or laundry machines and they're a pain in the ass.

Above all,

Use your common CENTS!
Get it? Sense/cents?  I made a fucking hilarious pun. Oh my god I'm so smart.

I'm going to end this entry now before somebody punches me through a computer screen for my horrible use of puns.