For several years I have struggled to spend cash at many different places. I walk into a convenience store to buy a soda and I'm holding my money and they tell me, "You're good, " and I get a free drink. This happened ten to twenty times over the seven years I lived in South Carolina, including on my last weekend of driving six weeks ago.
The most shocking experience was going to pay for parking at a hockey game in Pennsylvania. I was holding a twenty dollar bill which was what it cost and I went to hand it to the woman at the gate. She told me she had an extra parking pass from a season ticket holder and we were good to go.
My first experience with this problem in Colorado happened in my first week and it was at the post office. This is not the post office I went to, but this is the smallest post office in the USA and it's in Ochopee, Florida.
I had to mail our license plates back to South Carolina and when I walked into the post office I immediately saw the sign on each register: "CARD ONLY." I was going to pay cash and I just stood there in line shaking my head.
There was one line open and it was a short line in front of me, but the lady who was two ahead of me was having problems. She spoke English well, but she had difficulty understanding what the guy behind the counter was saying. It took awhile and the line started to grow, but finally she was going to complete her transaction.
She only had cash. When she heard she could not use cash, she explained that she didn't have a credit card. I watched this scene for a minute or two and figured I would just pay for her package to be sent. I asked the guy behind the counter if he could charge me and he was thrilled. It was only $5 and change and she was just as happy.
She handed me cash and thanked me several times. I went back in the line and waited, charged my package and walked out of the post office charging more on a credit card and having more cash in my wallet.
Some things never change; I'm going to have to figure out ways to spend cash.
ONE MORE THING: If you think my difficulty in spending cash is not real consider this:
Last week I went to my bank to send a wire transfer of a large amount of cash to purchase our house. Everything went perfectly and we double checked all the numbers and I thanked him and headed back to where I was staying. Five minutes after getting there, the bank called. Somehow when they sent the transfer it disappeared. I had to go back to the bank to sign off on the exact same information. The second time my money went through without a problem.
It's not easy paying cash.
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