ferrousland.com - daily news archives
Saturday, September 17, 2005
birthday money - 02:19 PM
(filed under 'smiley')
i have to tell you what happened with some birthday money which smiley was given. it's a good story.
after having some issues getting a birthday present to smiley last year for his first birthday, my mate in the usa, dave, sent smiley a birthday card with a USD$20 note in it, to avoid any of the problems he encountered last time.
so i took smiley's USD$20 to the bank which we were near when audrey & i went to the shops last week. it was the national bank. to exchange it into australian dollars, they wanted to charge $5 if i had an account there, or $7 if i didn't (which i didn't). i thought that was a bit steep, even if i had had an account with them, so i figured i'd take it to my own bank & surely it would be cheaper.
so off i went to suncorp to see what they were going to charge. unbelievably, they wanted $10!! no way! i asked if they'd at least match the national's rate, but the grumpy old cow of a bank manager said, "no" very grumpily. there was not a chance in hell that i was going to give them almost half of smiley's birthday money!!
audrey said that she could get the money changed with her credit union with no fees at all, so when she left, i made sure she had the USD$20 note. she called me the next day or so to tell me some rather good news about it. on the plane on the way home, she happened to be seated next to a texan on his way home. she asked if he had any australian dollars he needed changed, since she had this money. he asked what the exchange rate was & she told him around about 75c. he said (imagine texan accent here), "well, i have forty dollars australian here which i'll just have to get rid of anyway. why don't you have it & i'll have your twenty?" what a nice thing to do!
so not only did smiley not have to pay any fees on his USD$20, but he made a profit!
this morning we went to the shops & spent smiley's $40 on a big, yellow cat(erpillar) dump truck with large wheels (just like this one at amazon). he fell asleep about three seconds into the car ride home, so he hasn't played with it yet, but i took it out of its box & it's ready to go as soon as he wakes. i'll get a picture of him playing with it when i can. 
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