No small change

The glass vase on my bedside table was overflowing with loose change that I had tipped from my pockets. I came home to find that it was all correctly bagged up for me and ready to be shipped to the bank.

So imagine the scene when I walked into the bank at the busiest time of day with my sack of cash. Straightway the eagle-eyed cashier spotted a Latvian 5 cent piece through the plastic of my bag of coppers together with a Spanish 2 cent. As a result, instead of weighing the bags, she insisted on counting every single coin individually. The queue behind me got longer, my face got redder and I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.

The cashier remained professional and smiling throughout and reassured me that I had no need to apologise.

I'm going to stick to plastic and contactless now.