Clash with Cash

Yesterday Minister of Finance, Bill English, was asked how he felt delivering a budget when “he” had no money. Much like the rest of us I suppose; there are degrees of wealth and poverty but the thing they mostly have in common this that discretionary money finds its own level and there are few among us who have much cash to spare. In my case my BMW with a rapacious taste for petrol and an owner with an equally rapacious taste for single-malts have seen to that. But the cashless society, using the term in another context, was borne home to me in two other ways this week. One was when I cashed in some loose coinage collected over a three-month period. The total collected, as calculated by a helpful ANZ teller (almost as rare as cash today), was $204. Much more than I expected and, at that level, quite a nice savings mechanism had I not then promptly spent it with my second clash with cash. I made a $150 purchase at a shop paying for it with the newly garnered, freshly minted, and still teller-perfumed notes. The retail assistant—formerly known as the kid behind the counter—was fleetingly confused. Cash? I am not sure she quite knew how to handle that, or at least the part that required giving me change. She asked if I had a credit card instead.