Swiss miss

Sandra's post about all things Korean in her purse made me think about what I refer to as my Swiss personality. Or, rather, my wallet's Swiss personality. In the States, I rarely had more than $40 cash in my wallet at any one time, and I certainly never carried anything larger than a $20. Heavens knows I didn't want to get that look from the cashiers at CVS - you know, that look you get when you hand over a fifty-dollar bill to pay for a seven-dollar item. (Speaking of CVS, the cashiers at any given CVS in Washington, DC, have to be the surliest employees anywhere on the face of the planet, with the possible exception of those at the DC Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, with whom I had the dubious pleasure of dealing back in my Legal Assistant days. But I digress. Back to the wallet.) In Switzerland, on the other hand, I start to feel uncomfortably short of cash when I fall below CHF250 (about US 190 at today's rates). Seriously, I feel uncomfortably short of cash at that point. It's not uncommon for me to have a 100-franc note in my wallet. In fact, it's not uncommon for me to have a 200-franc note in my wallet. Now I'll confess that I'm still a bit uncomfortable with the 200-franc note (who needs a single bank note worth the equivalent of US 150?), but I think nothing of paying for a 4-franc coffee with a 100 note.

You see, cash is still king in Switzerland. A lot of little restaurants or cafes only take cash. The post office only takes cash (or the PostFinance card, which we don't have). Mailing Christmas presents back to the States can burn up a lot of cash, and is one of the few times I'm able to fork over the 200-franc note without batting an eye. I've been in line at the grocery store behind people paying for three hundred francs worth of groceries in cash. I've been in line behind a guy breaking a 1,000-franc note. At the grocery store. That's US 770. Not even at the real grocery store, no, this was at the little tiny emergency grocery store at the train station. He only had about 50 francs worth of groceries; the cashier broke his 1,000 note with a minimum of fuss. People do use their debit cards a lot, and I do, too, but there's still a lot of cash passing through people's hands in Switzerland. Including mine. It's one of the ways I've become rather Swiss.