The queue for air time
For the past few weeks it has been impossible to buy air time for cell phones
- Christmas without communication due to some incomprehensible banking/foreign currency/political manoeuvre
So the new queue to get air time for cell phones in January was enthusiastically long
with everyone waving the ‘now legal tender’ – US$ notes – to activate connections.
We smile at one another in hopeful expectation
One young man gives us a rundown on the names and lives of all the Presidents and Generals pictured on the US$ notes
‘I am a history scholar’ he says
the queue nod encouragingly
Another explains that today our dollar has reached a new low
(1 to the power of 19, I think)
‘that many! for one US$!- imagine what the equivalent value to 100 US$ looks like’
we chuckle together at the unfathomable quality of it all
A tired and gentle voice of the teller breaks through our exchange
‘We do not accept crumpled or creased notes’
(pointing at a hand written sign stuck to the wall)
we all look from the sign to our pictures of Presidents
with creased and crumpled faces
Franklin and Grant and Lincoln
our path to freedom
old and used
and disallowed
‘well’, the woman behind me explains
‘all that is needed is a quick dip in Sta-soft*
and a warm iron – just like new’
‘Sta-soft?’
the two young men look at one another
here, finally, is something they didn’t know
* Sta-soft is a fabric softener