Please, when you come to Canada, change your money. It isn’t that hard, and it will save me some headaches.
Thunder Bay is close to the border, so we get frequent American visitors to the art gallery. For some reason, they believe it’s fine to just hand us American money. Canada’s just the 51st state anyway, right? I know that when I go to the States, I don’t flash my Canadian cash all around the place. I trade my money in for your pallid green bills.
Our cash register is not a hi-tech computer with a flat panel display and a high speed Internet connection. It’s a box with lights and a few buttons. The exchange rate is currently set to about 62 American cents for every Canadian dollar, and our boss has to change it manually. I honestly don’t even know how to do the conversion on the machine (there’s a button, but I’m never sure when to push it during the transaction…).
So please, take it from someone who has to deal with your cash. I’ll be happier if you change it to Canadian money. Our bills are shiny and colourful—you’ll like them as souvenirs. And if I’m happier, it means I’ll be nicer to you. And if I’m nicer to you, you’ll be happier. Welcome to the circle of life.
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But Loonies and Twonies (SP?) are too much of a pain for us Americans :P
And every place I was in Canada (even when not close to the border) had the current exchange rate posted + an auto conversaion on their cash registers. Simple answer your cash registers suck! :P
But yeah I feel you pain, I felt like telling the person behind the cash register to do a 1 to 1 conversion I felt bad for them some times, (I kinda of ran out of Canadian money and had to use US dollars) :/
Oh and Ben (not Bablemon), some places in the US like Upper Michigan use “eh” 
(heck I use Eh a lot, eh?)
We have a neat nifty button we can press and it gives us the change in canadian dollars, and they , thereafter, have to deal with the fact that they are holding *Canadian* money.
I have it frequently - though I’m always amazed at the comments “So…this thing here, is a dollar and you call it a … a loonie you say?…how strange” 
Just remember Loretta, we’re all in this together. 
I will try to remember that when I come home this summer…hee hee hee.
@Aaron: Well, I can understand that, but it is explainable using elementary science. That is, osmosis balances the language environment up north like a cell wall balancing salts and such. You would be hard pressed to find a Floridian saying “eh”.
That’s fine, as long as you trade your “eh”s and such for “dude” and others when you come down here.
Saturday, June 23, 2007 at 9:54 PM