Dig through your couch cushions, your purse, or the floor of your car and look at the year printed on the first coin you find. What were you doing that year?
Where are the coins? Â Not even in begging bowls ! huh ! Have you ever tried giving a coin to a beggar recently? Then you must be knowing his expression. Even they deal in notes.
We have ATMs and lots of crispy paper money. Some call this invention the best thing since sliced bread ! It has its pros and cons anyways. Coming back to the point, why should I dig anywhere when coins are slowly disappearing from the scene !Â
That day I wanted a coin for a marriage ( In India we follow a ritual of adding one rupee extra in the money given to the newly wed couple as a token of blessings/ gift, suppose if I want to put  Rs.500 in an envelope then I wIll put 501, 100 will be 101. In a nutshell, any amount of money + 1. It  also holds significance for the religious occasions.) I dug through all my purses of different sizes and shapes, through the floor of the car, inside the drawers, turned inside out each pouch in my dressing corner. Alas ! I couldn’t find this endangered or I should say on the verge of extinction species: a one rupee coin !Â
Finally my son found an envelope with one rupee nicely attached to it. I remember this was one of the last piece from the packet I purchased from the super market. How convenient my task is now. I just had to put the amount I want to give away. The coin is already attached on the front side of envelope. One can tear it and use the coin later on ! Or one can simply keep the envelope for future use in one of the occasions.Â
The other day I went to buy grocery. The shop keeper handed over me the bill, it was nine hundred & two fifty five. He saw me taking out thousand rupee note from my wallet, he asked instantly,” I don’t have change. I searched my purse for lose money but I didn’t have five rupee coin. The shop keeper asked other customers they too had none. I was getting late so I suggested him to  add few more things and make it round figure. Where were the coins?
By the time I saw this prompt Buffalo Nickel I was so sick and tired of digging the first coin to write my story but alas ! solid crunch dear friends……I wrote a story, not based on coins but it is rather a very creative idea by one of my fellow blogger and friend Jathin who runs this Flash Fiction Chain and I can proudly call myself the foundation member of this team. It started with Jathin and two of us-myself and Sweety. Today we are quite a team. To know more about this team and enjoy the story here is the link of my contribution to the current chain:
15 Responses
We are slowly ridding away of coins here in Canada, first the penny then nickels are probably next and dime after, everything is being rounded off, heck won’t be long before it’s all JUST plastic lol
Same in India. We generally get candies instead of coins in return from the cash counters. No coins around.
The coin factories must be pretty dang nervous now huh!
😀
Sometimes we feel rather than running after pieces of paper, barter system would be much better. 😀
Absolutely correct ! Thanks for commenting here, glad you liked the message behind. 🙂
haha.. you are so rich!! 😀 I can still find a lot of coins here with me 😉
You must have collected them for quite some time
haha.. they are not for collecting. For using 😀
Which part of India you live in? Now we get candies or a pen worth five rupees instead of paying it back the remaining amount. Shopkeepers simply say Madam no chutte paise please buy something worth 10 rupees.
South part of India 😉 If they are not giving you 5 rupees back, they are just fooling people around! 1 rupee and worst case 2 rupees I can understand. At most of the toll booths you will get a candy instead of change. But here bus minimum charge is 7 rupees and they have to give the change or else we have to give them exact change.
I’ve had homeless people reject change as insulting. Insulting? It was all I happened to have on me at the time, so I think it was me who was insulted.
You know that in this country, toll booths won’t take pennies? I’m not sure whether or not they take change at all because we have a pass and it’s all done electronically. Why do they even MAKE small money any more? No one wants it.
You said it ! Thanks for throwing some more light on this issue. Your comments always made me wordly wise.
Very interesting post! Coins are definitely being used less and less. We are seeing more use of ATMs, cash, and now debit and credit cards. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
thanks for the positive feedback dear. I am so glad to hear from you.