A fools errand
My son is coming into town this weekend (crap, I started this last night, its Saturday morning, he's here and sleeping) and I have some time to kill tonight because he will arrive at something like 3:00am. This ETA makes Friday night drinking problematic as I normally sleep like a hibernating bear and a couple of drinks takes me to Nosferatu mode. Anyhow, I had a couple of lingering items on the long term ToDo list so I thought I'd knock them out. Most were dumb stuff like wash the road bugs off of my car and some Amazon returns but one was to turn in my pesky jar of coins.
I've been working on this one for a month because nobody wants them. Banks no longer have coin counting machines which I find infuriating. You are a bank. Money is your business. Take these filthy metal nuggets from me and turn them into something I can easily carry and spend so merchants will give me more coins. OR... someone figure out how to eliminate the damn things. Before you think it, I completely understand the concept of credit and debit cards, some of you might even point me toward Apple or Google pay but you should shut up. Some of the places I like to go don't take all of that nonsense and I respect that fact. A great measure of dive-bar-ness is no credit cards allowed and a shady ATM machine by the door that charges 25% to get your cash and sends your information straight to Russia.
My own traitorous bank will take my coins if I roll them up into their bullshit sleeves and then I think they weigh them to make sure you didn't fill the roll with electrical box punch outs. HOLY HORSESHIT that's your job! They make a counter and sorter with the sole mission of preventing my crappy skills in this area. FackOFF. My final option is Coin Star which has stepped in where banks have left a change acceptance void charging a hefty 10% if you want actual cash not a gift card which I hate almost as much as change.
I decided that while I was out running around I would eat the charge to get rid of the pile. That turned out to be easier thought than done. I wont bore you with my trail of tears but I went to 5 locations that were confirmed over the phone to have working machines (after the first convenient location burned me I decided to call before I drove to a new one) only to be denied by the screen or a hand scrawled sign declaring BUSTED.
take. my. money. I became mildly obsessed and as earlier stated I had time for a useless odyssey I pressed on. I'm begining to bore myself so I will sum up by telling you it took me an hour and a half to transform $112 of jingle into folding money. so stupid. The worst part was the guy giving me my cash was low on change… so I got to leave the store with a fist full of pennies.