Anecdote

Had a quite an effortful day today. To begin with, I had driving lesson in the morning. Went okay..! I had to make my way to the bank praying for luck. I can imagine you all thinking why. I had my £250 kaivishesham notes in a bag, folded in Pan leaves for months. Kai Vishesham is the money we get from our elders, especially from parents on the Tamil New Year. And they give it in Pan leaves as a tradition.

Okay, coming back to the point, I had the notes and coins folded in the leaves for 3 months till last week since the Tamil new year in April. I usually deposit it into my account; the whole point (of mine) is not to spend it. And this time, as I was quite busy, did not get the time to deposit and kept it as it was given to me in a bag! And guess what happened over the 3 months, the leaves got dampen and sodden and also partly dried. The notes were sticking on to the leaves!! I finished my exams last week, and that was when I got the time to open the bag. It was really a hard time for me to separate the leaves and notes out as the notes turned really thin! Some of them got torn into pieces. I ended up with only £200 worth notes but again in 2/3 pieces. Left them for a couple of days to dry out, and they turned into a state like pure dry leaves, which you have to hold very cautiously. Cos otherwise, they will just easily be in pieces. Phew!!!

Today, I took them to the bank, and handed in those notes with sellotape patches, holes and which felt like dried leaves. I desperately wanted the bank to accept them because it was £200 and I already lost £50. Btw, I kept quiet about this to my parents. It really made me feel very bad luck for this year because the initial money I got on the new year turned into this mess! Very superstitious! So, I showed them to the bank, told them the notes got wet..lol, the cashier was surprised and, "where you got them from -"my mum gave them to me". And he goes, "Ok, how did you get them in this state"-"errrm, I had them in a bag for a while....". He wasn't convinced and still wanted to know how I managed to get the notes in that very bad condition and I couldn't help explaining him "I had them folded in leaves".
"In leaaaaavvessss ?!?".
I then had to tell him it was a tradition to give them with leaves bla bla and he asked me how long I had them in the bag etc. That was extremely embarrassing. He then took them, showed to some other staff, checked them under the machine to make sure they were real before came back to me. He asked me to go to the post office near the banks and ask them to exchange and if they don't want it, come back. **Sigh**

That Post office in the centre of the Uni, has never had a fast moving queue. There was only one position active of all 4. And afterall waiting there so long, the staff told me in seconds I got to the cashier point, No Sorry! Went back to the bank, and they decided to take them, Thanks to that particular staff who explained the other staff who was at the counter when I went back that they were real notes. The bank staff had to handle those dried-leaf like, thin, brown coloured notes carefully without making any further damage. It was really an effort to me to save that money and at the same time learned a great lesson! Not gonna save any money in my bag for months and months like that, and it's always good to put them in the bank soon. Money is worth only to the extent of its existence in that paper-form. It was a total stupidity and hope you'll all be pre-cautious from my experience!