Incapable of Change

Argentina suffers from a bizarre cultural phenomenon wherein nobody ever has change. One day, recently, I went to purchase a couple of 30 centavo tortitas with a 2 peso bill. “Do you have anything smaller?” asked the cashier. I did not. “Take them…” she waved me off, “just take them and go.” I left with my two warm little biscuits that I didn’t have to pay for because the task of coming up with $1.40 in change was just too daunting. This situation repeats itself every day all over the country. Here, the act of making a purchase is viewed by the vendor as a collaborative process. Many of the kiosks even hang up signs that say “Please collaborate with the change” or even “There is NO Change”. Even in the supermarkets, the checkout clerks will inevitably ask the purchaser if they have some coin or combination of coins and smaller bills; anything to minimize the amount of change they have to give you after your purchase.

Yesterday we went on a wine tour and at the end of the tour, decided to purchase a bottle. One would think that the idea behind getting people to come to your bodega and giving them a free tour and wine tasting would be to sell them bottles of your wine. We selected a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon for $15.50. We went to pay for the bottle with a $100, which is the default bill provided by the ATMs. She was unable to sell us the wine because she could not make change. She asked if I could come up with the exact amount between my wife and the two friends we brought with us. Between the four of us, we actually could have done it, but then we would have been screwed for the rest of the day. Already we did not know how we were going to get back on the bus.

The Bus. What is it with public transportation that people are always trying to take a good, working system, and smash it into the ground? So, the entire network of Mendoza city busses recently adopted a policy of not giving change or accepting paper bills. What are they thinking? They are throwing gasoline on a fire. Yesterday, on the way to catch the bus to the bodega, the headline on the local paper read, “Bus companies have amassed $240,000 pesos during November since deciding not to give change.” I thought I was being proactive by taking a bunch of different denominations of coinage with me to the bus stop. With four of us, it shouldn’t be too hard, everything should add up to five and change and we’ll be on our way. That was before I knew that they now require each rider individually to put at least the proper amount of coins into a little box that gives you a little, paper ticket. “Is this a transfer?” asked our visitor, Jason. “No,” I said, at a loss, “It is Argentina.” So, with far, far more planning and preparation than went into the Iraq war, we managed to extract enough change from the change deficient Argentines to get us four gringos back and forth to the bodegas of Maipu. It was truly a battle. Shame we can’t enjoy our victory over a bottle of wine.