Selling Sno-Cones at the Beach

essentializing is my life

For decades if not centuries, geography was about finding the underlying patterns in things - generalizing about the world, finding similarities and differences. Since the cultural turn in the 1980s (of which I was blissfully unaware at the time), it's passe if not a little gauche to generalize about people, their characteristics, and their habits.

But I don't care: what is the DEAL with exact change in Poland? Everywhere I go, there's this insistence on the exact change, as if reaching into the cash drawer for all those mini-coins is just TOO MUCH WORK. If you buy something that costs say 9.50, they are all pissed off if you hand them a 10-note. I bought an interim skirt and top when my luggage had gone missing; the total was 58.80, and they were all pouty cuz I didn't have 80 groszy and handed them 60 in notes. Today at the grocery I watched a very complicated transaction that involved multiple exchanges of coin, and reaching into multiple pockets and purses. Hellooo?? There are 10 people in line: JUST MAKE CHANGE.

Then I walked up, with 2 bottles of water (about 2 zloty each) and asked for a bottle of Chianti (incredibly cheap; don't even ask!) and handed her a 100-note with a look that said, "hey, I'm a member of the world's largest and most powerful economy. Open up that change drawer, honey" and she did, no whining.

The ATM's only give 100-notes for "large" (that's about US $30) withdrawals. What the hell are we supposed to do with them?