In this country, change is hard.
You can’t ever get any. It is very common to go into a store and try to buy something and the cashier doesn’t have enough change to complete the transaction. You can buy more stuff, not buy anything, or leave a huge tip.
You often see employees digging for change in their purses and wallets to help customers.
One thing that is common here is when they run out of pesos for change (about 3 cents right now) they will give you candy or Hall’s Cough Drops in lieu of money.
For a while I thought this was just them being nice…until I realized they were short-changing me equal to the amount of Chicklets I got.
One time recently, they didn’t have change or candy, so the cashier just closed the register and smiled at me.
Buyer beware, I guess.
Epilogue: A friend of mine took her received Hall’s Cough Drop and sales receipt and presented it the next time she went to that store, attempting to pass it off as hard (candy) currency. It worked.
