By:Curtis Morton
The way I see it, it is important to save. My parents taught me the basic principles of thrift and the importance of saving for a rainy day. I am certainly not talking about hoarding and literally starving yourself of the basic necessities of life.
One thing I learnt about saving too is that you don’t have to save in bulk. If you don’t have it, whatever little you have, you save that too. As the old people used to say: ‘One, one full basket’.
So here I was starting this piggy bank at home with all the change that I brought home. I mean, I saved all of the one cents, two cents, five cents, quarts and dollars that came into my possession on a daily basis.
One day as I looked at the significant pile up, I decided that it was time to take them to the Bank. You don’t have to light any lamp to find out where I went—to the Nevis Credit Union of course!
So here I was in this long line. The longer I waited, the more fidgety I became and I was seriously thinking about leaving when I realized that I was next in line and so I waited.
Now to save time, I had carefully counted out the coins and had them in separate bags with the total amount written on each bag. Imagine, I easily had about 75.00 in coins! The young Clerk looked at me and said ‘Mr. Morton we will have to count them ourselves’. I guess she saw the puzzled look on my face and she quickly stated: ‘No we trust you but it’s just the policy’.
‘Okay’, I said reluctantly, as I looked back and saw the line lengthening towards the door. As she proceeded with her count, I suddenly realized that this might take longer than the election results. I started to feel really uneasy and things turned sour when one lady shouted: ‘Well he nar go move no?” Another voice stated quite clearly: ‘Well wha mek he choose today of all days to bring all dem coins in ya?’
Then the real classic: ‘He must be ah go open an shop!”
Well I newa!
I said not a word but I was kind of hoping that the floor would open and swallow me up. You hear pon wud me get for me coins.
When the painful exercise was finally over, I hurried out of the Credit Union to sounds of: ‘He finally finish’ and other similar comments.
I have since vowed: “Never me again”.
I have another set of coins in my piggy bank but I think I will wait until the Credit Union ,make an announcement that they will be open for only one customer on a particular day—and that customer is me!
That’s the way I see it. How do you see it?