Wednesday, August 13, 2008

It's crazy in Ohio

CINCINNATI, Ohio - An Ohio man who says he doesn't trust paper money has delivered enough coins to cover half the price of a brand new pickup truck. Employees at a dealership in the Cincinnati suburb of Springdale say 70-year-old James Jones plunked down 16 coffee cans full of coins Tuesday for a new Chevrolet Silverado. Salesman David Crisswell says employees spent 90 minutes counting the collection of dimes, quarters, half-dollars and dollar coins, which covered half the $16,000 price of the pickup. Jones and his wife Betty wrote a check for the other half of the cost.
He doesn't trust paper money but he expects the car dealer to trust his paper check? I guess this shows how desperate Chevy dealers are to sell those worthless Silverado's. Try taking that crap into a Toyota dealership and buying a Prius with coffee cans full of coins. Your ass is out the door to the nearest bank.
I'm guessing that the bank wouldn't take his change and let the car dealer take a check for the entire amount. Sure they would. He "doesn't believe in paper money?" What year is this? You people in Ohio is crazy, yo.
Meanwhile, I made another of my frequent trips to the local grocery store. My mind wandered as I watched the cashier (I'll call her a cashier, even though she really isn't) roll the items across that glass screen and listen for the beep before rolling the next item across the screen. It doesn't take a skill other than hearing to do the job nowadays, but they don't make that much money either. I had some sympathy, since she was wearing a badge that said, "IN TRAINING TO SERVE YOU BETTER" which gave me an added amount of patience as she counted my change. You go girl.
When I was a kid (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) cashiers had to read the price tag (what's a price tag?) and punch buttons on a cash register (hence the name cashier) and apply either "taxable" or "non-taxable" to items based on their designation. There was a time when shoppers (me) had to separate the taxable from the non-taxable items on the conveyor so that the cashier (there's that term again) could pick them out easily - because she (usually a she) was making minimum wage ($1.75 an hour) and didn't want the hassle of separating your toilet paper from your chicken parts. That's how it was.
So, the guy who doesn't trust paper money would have fit right in back in 1968 when people of that generation lived through a crisis called The Great Depression (when great didn't mean good) and felt that their mattress was the best saving device.
I have a jar full of change (which I call the Giant Jar of Change) and I'll use it for something less than a car, but before I do, I'll take it to the local bank (next to the local grocery store) and have it counted (free) and deposit it in my checking account (also free). That's just how I roll.
Call me strange (go ahead) but I'd feel guilty asking employees to sit and count change for an hour and a half to indulge my ridiculous belief system that includes paper money and the value of time.
I'd think that a truck was worth at least that much. By the story, I'd assume he doesn't carry paper cash. He should try paying for the gasoline with a jar of change and see how far that gets him.

11 comments:

kimmyk said...

it's not free to take change to the bank here. or to use those funky dump and count machines. they take a percentage.

i have a coin jar. (two actually. one for silver and one for pennies) i've tried in the past when we got it full to take it to the bank--they wouldn't take all that change. they gave us roll papers to roll it and count it ourselves.

i say the fact that he took it in cans is cold hard cash er coin and in this day when someone chooses to purchase a car instead of groceries...i'd count it out too.

i wouldn't feel guilty asking an employee of a company that probably hasn't sold a new car to count out my money---not in the slightest. give me the keys and let's roll.

and really, who uses paper money anymore? i haven't carried cash in probably oh my gosh, YEARS...thanks to the debit card.

kimmyk said...

oh yeah...

2 posts in 2 days about ohio.
either you think we're idiots or you just really like ohio.

mmhmm.

Anthony said...

Hey, I can't help it if Ohio is goofy.

You don't carry cash but you still "trust it" right?

Anthony said...

Oh, and the local bank here has free coin counting machines which pretty much drove those percentage counters out of business locally.

Kate Michele said...

If he doesn't believe in paper money than where did the change come from?
::raises eyebrows::

As a former customer service rep (teller) for a national bank i can tell you we wont count it either. You have to have it rolled prior to bringing it in before we could accept it and deposit it. Hey... we didn't get paid much either :D

Ohio has only one thing worth anything.... ;)

xoxoxox

Anthony said...

... and I'm guessing that's you? :)

Commerce Bank has coin counting machines for free.
Dump 'em in ... get your cash.

Anthony said...

on the nose again. :)

Anonymous said...

Why would you keep a coin jar anyway?
To me, it's just another useless gadget blocking space in the household.

Or is it just fun to have it?

Anthony said...

The question is: Why not keep a coin jar?

It's even better now, since I don't have to count them and roll them anymore. The local bank counts them for free. It's a no-interest savings account that comes in handy when I need drinking money.

kimmyk said...

I will give you that-that Ohio is goofy and so are some of it's residents. (Present company excluded of course.)

I have a jar now that I've started and I actually dread rolling the coins-do you know how dirty that stuff is? I don't know what that silver stuff is that comes off in my hands, do you? You'll know...you're a walking Wikipedia.

Anyways, stop raggin' on Ohio...let's talk about I don't know....Missouri. I know for a fact they got some crazy asses there.

Anonymous said...

I live in Ohio and I just turned in more than $210 worth of change that had accumulated the last few years.

This is just from coming home every night from work, emptying my pockets and dumping the spare change in a bowl. I'm not consciously storing it for any purpose: it's just a convenient place to stick it.

I'd love to have a local bank convert the coins for free. I use CoinStar and it takes a 9% cut. But when I consider the time and headache of physically rolling all those coins, I guess their $19 cut of the action is worth it. Plus, I can re-coup the loss by investing in their stock (CSTR), which has been rising steadily these last five years.