"A couple of police officers leapt out and asked us to jump up and down. You what? They asked us again, but in a tone suggesting it was less of a question than a command. Up and down we jumped until told to stop doing so. The cops thanked us for our trouble and, jumping back into their vehicle, explained they were on the hunt for some lads who'd just robbed an amusement arcade."
"I filled my pockets with all the shrapnel, tightened my belt so my trousers didn't fall down, and off I went I have a pocketful of pound coins jangling away right now. Not because I've robbed an amusement arcade, though I might have to resort to it. You see, the barrier to the station car park I use bore bad news one morning: the ticket machines wouldn't be accepting card payments."
One night in Cricklewood the narrator and friends were stopped by police who ordered them to jump up and down while searching for amusement-arcade robbers. Years later the narrator accumulates pound coins after a station car park's ticket machines stopped accepting cards, forcing cash payments. The narrator withdraws cash, adjusts spending to retain five-pound notes, and then deliberately buys items to obtain pound-coin change. The barrier eventually opened, but the experience shifted behavior toward hoarding coins. The narrator now carries a pocketful of pound coins and views coin availability and machine reliability as drivers of small transaction habits.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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