Goines On: The E.U. coin zone

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(That’s Sacré-Coeur Basilica in 2021,
out the Goineses‘ apartment window)

Goines cottoned quickly onto shops’ ways of stating prices, alternatively “1€90” or “€1.90,” and he liked being able to use the same coins and currency in both France and Germany.

    He had mastered the size difference between 1-euro and 2-euro coins and between 1-cent and 5-cent coins, the design difference between 1-euro and 50-cent coins, and the shape difference between 1-euro and 20-cent coins. But he wished they’d banish 2-cent coins, which would simplify the task of distinguishing among the relatively insignificant copper-clads.

 

    Goines disliked how his coin fumbling made it easy for shopkeepers to spot him as a tourist, although he appreciated it when a clerk sorted among the coins Goines had strewn on the counter to find the amount Goines owed – unless the clerk cheated him, but it was too hard to count his money later to determine that and, besides, exactly how much did he have in his pockets when he entered a store anyway? He hadn’t written it down, and he kept forgetting how many euro coins he had in his left pocket versus how many cent coins in his right. And it was even more complicated when he used two right pockets to segregate 1-, 2-, and 5-cent coins from 10-, 20-, and 50-cent coins.
    And if a clerk did cheat him out of a few cents, what did it matter? The clerk probably needed them more than Goines did.
    And, anyway, whom was he kidding? Everyone already knew he was a tourist; they heard it the moment he opened his mouth.

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