Change

When that bald guy who lives alone by the river promised change last year, I didn't know this was what I would get.

Since I started college I've had to deal with an insane amount of metal money. Last year I used this partitioned plastic thing I took out of a lunch box to manage my coins. All my P5 coins went in one partition; all the P10 coins, in the other. I had them exchanged for hundred-peso bills regularly.

The one-peso coins had a paper bag all to themselves, and by school year's end I had around P1,500 in P1 coins. That's 1,500 pieces of small round Jose Rizal faces. The paper bag weighed a ton. I lived a block away from a Philippine National Bank branch, and I could have had it changed for a paper bill or two there. But I was lazy. And I feared the paper bag would give up before I could get to the bank and spill my precious one-peso coins all over the sidewalk. So I took the bag home.

At the airport I had to pay P4,500 in excess baggage fees (stupid Cebu Pacific charges P150 per excess kilogram)—and that was after I decided to just carry two or three bags I had meant to check in. The bag of coins weighed around 10 kilograms, by Papa's estimate. So I essentially had to pay Cebu Pacific P1,500 to ship a bag carrying P1,500 home.

To the woman at National Bookstore Technohub

who was paying for her purchases at the counter while Katz and I stood behind her waiting for our turn.

When I pulled out my wallet, a five-peso coin fell out of my pocket and onto the floor, too. I bent over to pick it up and you turned to me, said "Thank you," and stuck your hand out, apparently thinking the money was yours.

Don't worry. It was every bit as awkward for me as it was for you; the guy giggling behind the counter as he bagged your stuff didn't help things, either. If it makes you feel any better, I was thisclose to just giving you the money to avoid the awkwardness.

So, uh, yeah. Sorry.

Finally, new money.

My MLQ is prettier than yours. Thanks to Katz and the UP Cashier's Office.