May 26

I go to the pharmacy to get my dad's medication and a woman there asks the cashier if she can buy a mask.  This is a disposable mask that comes out of a huge box of them.  The cashier says they are US$1.50.  A couple of weeks ago, I remember someone on Facebook saying that before the advent of the coronavirus, these were being sold for the equivalent of US10c.  

One thing I have noticed of late is how people charge in US dollars.  There is a tendency to charge, for example, $2.50 rather than $2 or $3.  We don't have fifty-cent pieces here.  We used to have a fifty-cent bond coin, introduced because everyone was tired of getting their change in Eversharp pens and chewing gum, but I have not seen it for a while.  It is certainly not the real equivalent of US50 cents. If you are using US dollars to pay, you could pay the fifty cents in the bond equivalent or you could do what shops hope you will do - buy two so you end up with a nice rounded figure that doesn't require change.  The lady in the pharmacy buying two masks.

Outside the pharmacy, I approach her and tell her where she can buy a cloth mask for the same price.  She does not seem very happy with my suggestion even when I tell her that she just bought a mask that should only really be worn once.

'But I wash these,' she says, looking pained and completely forgetting that she has just bought two new masks because the one she has on is obviously on its last legs.

I give up.