Plastic Money

After four days of using polypropylene currency:

I don’t like it. It doesn’t fold. It only bends. It’s slippery like a register receipt. It slides out of your pocket onto the floor.

I don’t want to be a Luddite. I thought I would like the new money. It doesn’t tear, and if you forget and leave bills in a pocket while doing the wash, they will be cleaned but not destroyed. Nor will they disintegrate, contaminating everything else in that wash cycle.

Many countries are slowly strolling out plastic money. The plastic bills don’t mix well with their paper cousins, still the predominant form. Paper folds. So you end up with a wad, some bills folded, others not.

The Cashless Future

Wuddabout the cashless future? I stood for one half hour behind two Malaysian ladies trying to install an app, change passwords, link to their banking, restore points, and God knows what else. Finally it was my turn to order coffee.

After insisting that I was sure I did not want to install their app, I paid with a card. Fortunately:

• the Internet was working
• the card terminal was working
• my bank’s end was working

Otherwise, the plastic cash in my pocket would have been useless.