When cash was king

Last week the Bank of Canada released brand new $20 polymer bank notes to much fanfare. The bills sport a fancy design and pay respect to our war veterans depicting the Vimy Memorial in France on the back. The front depicts a picture of the Queen. The colour remains the same as the older $20 notes -- green.

 The bank notes are touted as being nearly impossible to counterfeit. On Friday night I got one from a bank machine. It immediately ended up in my 14-year-old daughter's wallet. She called it her allowance, I called it 'money for nothing' but that's a topic for another blog.

The $20 note is the third one to be upgraded, the first being the $100 note released last November followed by the $50 note released in March.

On Sunday my wife Heather dragged me out to Justice, a new kids' clothing store, to spend a few of these new bank notes. We had Christmas gifts to buy for my niece and she apparently loves Justice.

The store was buzzing with activity. Kids and parents were everywhere shopping for the brightly coloured clothes. It wreaked of 1985. I saw styles hanging on the racks that would have made Madonna, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Cindy Lauper proud.

Heather and I got in line and waited. Twenty minutes later we were greeted by the young teen cashier. After asking us for our phone number and postal code she said, "Will you be paying for this by credit or debit?"

"Cash," Heather replied pulling out some of Canada's fancy new money. The girl looked confused.

"I can't take cash at this register, you'll have to wait for that register," she said pointing to her right.

"You've got to be kidding me. What business doesn't accept cash?" Heather said.

"I'm sorry, I can't take cash at this register," she replied.

Stunned we went to line No. 2. When we finally got to the other cashier she too asked us for our phone number and postal code.

"I'm not giving you that information," Heather said.

The teenager didn't know what to do. Apparently Heather was the first person she'd dealt with who refused to give up her personal information. These days we're so accustomed to answering those questions it seems unusual if a cashier doesn't ask them.

"This store has a lot to learn about customer service," Heather said.

"I apologize for the long wait," the girl said. She had no idea the wait was only part of the reason we were unhappy.

It was amazing how quickly our purchase was completed by not having to plug in so much personal information into Justice's computer system. The girl took our money and put it into her register, just like in the olden days, you remember those back in the 1980s?

I know money is used less and less these days as debit and credit cards have taken over. But being refused service for wanting to use cash caught me off guard. That was our first trip into Justice and given our experience it will probably be our last.

Kobo heaven

Our family has a love-hate relationship with my wife Heather's Kobo e-reader. Earlier this week we hated it, today we're back in love with it.

Last week when my daughter Rebekah went to use it a disturbing line ran down the left side of the screen rendering it useless. I screamed at Rebekah, Heather screamed at Rebekah and then we both screamed at once. Why we were screaming at our daughter was a good question because she didn't break it, she discovered it was broken. Nevertheless, Rebekah bore the brunt of our anger.

"Can you believe this, I've had it six weeks, six weeks and it's broken," Heather said. Then to emphasize her frustration she said, "SIX WEEKS!"





By this point Rebekah had disappeared to her bedroom. For those of you who don't know our daughter as well as we do (and how could you?!?) when she's in trouble she just disappears. All other times she's usually in our faces and behaving as wonderfully as any 12 year old girl would. 

So Heather called the Kobo people and they were very sympathetic to our plight. A Kobo lady told us to ship it back to them once we received a postage paid envelope they would courier to us. It arrived and Heather sent it back on Monday.

We fully expected to wait the two weeks they said it would take. On Thursday a new Kobo arrived at our front door. Who got to sign for it? Our daughter. She thought that was so cool.

In life there are times when companies jerk you around because they can. But not Kobo. We thought our e-reader was toast and the money we spent on it was lost. It was nice to not only be treated like human beings but to have our problem dealt with so efficiently. Good on them.

There's only one problem now that we have a new Kobo to enjoy at home. Heather won't let Rebekah or myself touch it. She doesn't share very well. Now I know where my four year old daughter gets it! But that, as they say, is a story for another day.