The Money
[Photo by Karen Laårk Boshoff]
In the days before credit cards and people paying for everything with their mobile phones, watches (and even wearable rings!) people used to use this thing called cash. Over my tours, cash used to be as popular as the other ways to purchase tickets to my concerts and physical products at my merch table.
On my tours, nothing would make me feel richer than when all this cash would build up into a stockpile which would give me a false sense of wealth until the crushing reality of all the tour costs came crashing down on me. And most of this cash was usually in coins, which left me looking less like a mega-wealthy entrepreneur and more like someone who’d just robbed a pinball arcade.
Cash on a tour can quickly become a safety hazard for a number of reasons. So when I looked to open a bank account with a new establishment prior to an upcoming tour, my first thought was, “How many outback and regional branches do you have that will accept large amounts of coins from a struggling musician?”
I was suckered in by one bank who told me that I could deposit coins at any post office in Australia. On that tour, I spent a lot of time being glared at by postal employees who had not yet been read into their new role as a counter of coins on behalf of some bank in the city that they’d never heard of. I was almost run out of town in one place where the one postal employee (I think her name was ‘Marge’) laboriously counted out my coins while the queue of locals gave me black looks of death. I wondered if I should try the break the ice by inviting them along to my concert that night, but thought better of it when I remembered the gun racks in the utes outside.
So before this more recent tour, I’d done much research and interviewed many bank employees before I made my decision on which bank I’d use. Even then, I didn’t have much faith in proceedings, so I carefully noted down on my map which bank branches I should use across the tour to offload my occasional loot.
I love Tasmania. Its lush forests, seas and landscapes, fun people and great food have always appealed to me. On this particular tour, I had an absolute blast with many great people coming along to my concerts (except for one where no one turned up!). I was flying solo on this tour leg, driving my motorhome (the second of three on this particular tour), performing at each concert, running sound, the merch table and also doing the dreaded cash count. I realised that I’d need to drop off a large amount of coins at the bank before I got on the ferry back to the mainland.
I found the bank branch earlier in the morning before I had to drive to the ferry. They had a special machine where you’d pour the coins into and another part where you’d insert bundles of cash. It felt like Las Vegas yet in reverse. So I hefted up my bags of coins and poured them in, watching the screen counter go up and up. Then I placed the bundles of notes in a special draw and heard the machine whir through them. And then I heard nothing at all. The screen went blank. I looked for any print out which would confirm my tallies. Nothing. Just as I started to lose all hope, the machine made a noise and the lights came back on. All was not lost!
“Please tap or insert your card to begin your deposit.”
What!? It has gone back to its original screen? What about my deposit? What about my money?
A few minutes went by. I tapped and prodded the machine unsure of what to do. I also realised that I might miss my ferry as the time flew by. But I also realised that my tour was over if I lost all this money!
A shadow appeared behind me. It was someone with their own bag of coins.
“Not today mate!” I tried to say without appearing too threatening.
They fled. My eyes caught another shadow of movement, this time from within the bank. I started frantically tapping on the glass. I saw a lady who was obviously deciding on whether to take flight whilst calling the police, or whether she should come and see what the fuss was about.
I tried to let a sense of light-heartedness come across in my voice as to not scare away this living breathing lifeline to my cash.
“Ha ha… Nothing to be scared of here. Just… ha ha… lost all my money in your machine… ha ha…”
I sounded like a demented fiend.
All kudos to this banking lady. Instead of calling a SWAT team, she got even closer to the glass.
“… wha… id…. you… ay?”
The glass was muffling both our sides of the conversation.
“THE MOH NEY! YOUR MAH SHINE HAS TAY KEN ALL MY MOH NEY!” I said as I held up my empty moneybags and trying not to look like an armed robber.
“Aah!” she said as she walked quickly away. I thought I’d lost her; yet she returned, this time with keys to unlock the bank door.
I looked at my watch. There was no way I could see myself making it to the ferry in time.
The lady appeared beside me and prodded and tapped the machine.
“Did it print out a slip?” she asked. “No?”
I explained my predicament. It turned out that she couldn’t access the machine at all until the bank opened. She asked me if I had a count of what had gone into the machine. I gave her all my tallies. She waved me off to the motorhome and I wondered whether I’d ever see that money again. I dashed for the ferry.
The ferry trip was an agonising wait. I had almost no phone reception and no updates regarding the money. I couldn’t even raise my account balance on the mobile app.
Finally I arrived on the mainland. The money was in my bank account! I went straight to a florist and had flowers sent to this marvel of a bank lady in Tasmania. I wrote the bank headquarters to commend their wonderful employee. I thanked God for putting this dedicated worker in the bank that day. The tour went ahead.
I had a lovely call from her a day later. She had received her flowers and had found the money all jammed into the inner workings of the machine. The culprit? A ten dollar note with a slightly folded corner.
I picked up my third rented motorhome and gave myself two days off before heading onto another town and beyond that another bank with my clinking bags of coins, never again to use an out-of-hours machine.
