When Will They put a Woman on a Dollar Bill?

[steepholm]

I went to the Post Office today to buy US dollars for my forthcoming Readercon/Marshfield Hills/Martha's Vineyard/Boston trip. (It's going to be a packed 7 days.) I don't think I've seen a dollar up close and personal since 2004, and just now they look strange and unreal in my hand. Especially the $10 bills - were they always beige? I have no memory of US notes as anything other than a uniform colour and size - a particularly unfortunate arrangement for those with poor eyesight, it seems to me. If I squint a little, Alexander Hamilton begins to look strangely Puckish, and the words beside him read "The Wee People." All very Artemis Fowl.

This may be a stupid question, but it would be useful to know: will I be able to use my bank card in America to get money from an ATM? In Ireland and the continent this is no problem at all, but America may be different, advanced technology or no.

Technological blind spots are odd. Back in the mid-'80s my Vineyard friend and I used to joke about setting up an import-export business. I would send electric kettles to the States, and she would fill up the empty ships with screen doors. Has the US discovered the joy of the electric kettle yet? We still have no screen doors.

lady_schrapnell once mentioned that when she lived in Tucson she didn't buy a clothes drier, unlike most of her neighbours, because - well, baking hot climate most of the year plus space for a washing line, and all. "In six months, you'll want one like all the rest," she was told. She didn't - but it says something about what's perceived as a necessity (or even useful) in different places. Contrast Japan, that ultra-gadget-minded country, which still hangs its clothes out to dry if we may judge by the cartoons - despite having a rainy season.

And - to round this off - when Vineyard friend's father visited us in Cambridge, also in the mid-'80s, he was surprised to find that pelican crossings not only showed the green person walking, but beeped the while. "Is that for the benefit of blind people?" he asked, somewhat incredulously. We explained that it was, as were the nipples in the paving stones at such crossings, which give them a distinctive feel underfoot. I think he found these features eccentric rather than admirable; but I wonder whether they've crossed the Atlantic in the intervening decades?

Comments

[jadelennox]

I can use my ATM card in the UK and Ireland, so I assume you can use yours here, although there might be specific banks where you can't.

Several years back I posted a poll about electric kettles and discovered that most of my American friends think that they are frivolous and unnecessary, while most of my UK/Ireland friends think that they are somewhat akin to flush toilets. Interestingly, people felt exactly the opposite about microwaves. Also interestingly (although not surprisingly given my upbringing), I was effectively UK in this; you will pry an electric kettle out of my cold dead fingers and in fact I keep my semi-broken ones around so that is my current one breaks I have a backup, but while I find a microwave to be a convenience I wouldn't particularly cry if I didn't have one.

I also hang my clothes out to dry but I see very few other people around here who do; to be fair what can you do when most people live in multifamily units but clotheslines aren't considered standard so you would have to ask your neighbors about them?

We do have beeping crosswalks and (now by federal fiat) textured curb cuts, although interestingly I have several blind friends you find them really irritating.

I'm just waiting for England to discover peanut butter and chocolate, for goodness' sake. I mean, peanut butter. And chocolate.

[steepholm]

I have a microwave (which I got through a freecycle scheme years ago), but mostly use it for heating up the stuffed cat that serves my daughter in the office of a hot water bottle.

When I spent time in the Vineyard in the early '90s I became slightly addicted to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, something I'd never heard of here at the time. They still aren't common, but they're certainly available here now if you know where to look...

[adaese.livejournal.com]

This might be something that varies from state to state, but they've had noisy crossings in California for decades. They give bad impressions of different kinds of bird for each road if it's around a cross-roads - cuckoo one way, tweet tweet tweet the other, IIRC.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's rather sweet! (At least, from 6,000 miles away.)

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

will I be able to use my bank card in America to get money from an ATM?

I certainly had no problem using my Lloyds Visa debit card in ATMs when I went to New York recently. What did throw me for a while (though I should have remembered it from a previous trip to New Orleans) was the fact that in the States the majority of ATMs are stand-alone machines inside shops, rather than being the 'hole-in-the-wall' type provided by the banks which is more common here.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Just realised I failed to explain why this threw me, which was simply that I struggled to find one for the first couple of days, until I figured out that I needed to look out for something different from what I was used to in the UK.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's a useful tip! Thanks - I'll bear it in mind.

[larryhammer]

Since I've never had trouble using my bank-card in Europe, I suspect you'll be good. (Though you may want to let your bank know you'll be traveling, so they won't be startled and worry about theft.)

Electric kettles, yes, though they are not yet universal -- we learned to want one from visiting my brother-in-law in Basel. We also like our bread-machine and rice-cooker -- enclosed devices that let us not turn on the house-heating stove are Good Things. (It took us several years after moving into our current place in Tucson to hook up our existing clothes drier -- except for the six-week season of erratic thunderstorms (just starting up this week), we didn't feel the need, and even now we line-dry as much as possible.) Sounds at crosswalks and textured ramps at curbs are spreading -- not yet universal, but busy corners are being steadily converted as local budgets allow.

And yes, our currency is an international embarrassment.

---L.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's a good tip about letting the bank know - thanks!

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

When I phoned the credit card people the recorded message said I didn't need to do that kind of thing. Probably as well. And think about conversion and withdrawal charges.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, how I wish your trip were three months later!!! I will be in Boston and Martha's Vineyard in October, sigh. Another opportunity missed.

Well, I'll look forward to your report.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It may be more of a running commentary, if I remember to bring my laptop! For what it's worth I always envy you your MV reports, too.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I didn't have any trouble getting cash in the US with my card (can't remember now whether I used my credit or debit card). However, I think you will be charged a fee. Regarding kettles, the hotels certainly didn't have them. (And despite what they said, the coffee makers do not work for making tea!)

On my second trip, I took a travel kettle, but what with the lower voltage and the altitude in Boulder, Colorado, tea making was somewhat tedious and not as satisfactory as at home.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Since I only really like green tea, which shouldn't be made with water at 100 degrees C anyway, that wouldn't be much of a problem for me - but I can happily make do with coffee for a week!

[negothick.livejournal.com]

As you'll soon discover, most US hotels' coffeemakers produce neither good tea nor good coffee. The water run through the coffeemaker always tastes like weak coffee, and so does the coffee.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Now, that could be a problem. I guess I'll have to make do with vodka...

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

"The water tasted bad for a week, And we had to make do-o with gin, with gin, We had to make do-o with gin."

[larryhammer]

This is, alas, all true.

---L.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure what a 'pelican crossing' is even after passing the driving test, but yes, our walk/don't walk signs do beep. :)

You can get electric kettles in the US, though they're not standard. I am still trying to convince Britain of the use of screen doors. And screen windows. People here just stare blankly at me when I try to explain. Tumble dryers, however, are standard.

And not that they're often in circulation, but the women are on the dollar coins. The old version has Susan B Anthony, the new version Sacagawea.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

When I was growing up we had a stream at the bottom of the garden, and on summer evenings when we left the door open for coolth the ceiling would be black with gnats and flies. A screen door would have been a godsend; but we didn't waste time pining for one as we had no notion of their existence.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I asked a friend here about the total lack of screens in the windows, and he couldn't even conceive of what I was talking about. When I finally tried to explain that it was a concept a bit like a mosquito net, he blinked, puzzled, and said 'but we don't have malaria.'

I gave up, but when a slug got into my house because of our lack of screen door, he's the one who ended up having to come over and deal with it. :p

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, on the rare occasions that I get a dollar coin, these days it's usually the newer ones with those terrible portraits of the presidents.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen those! I worked at a bank when the Sacagawea ones came out, but then I stopped paying attention. Sadness--the presidents surely have their faces on enough money already!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It was another attempt at a series to make people collect the coins, but apparently it didn't work because they quit after President Garfield or somewhere around there.

I'd had fun collecting the state quarters, which were all distinctive and interesting, but I declined to participate in this one, partly because dollar coins appear more rarely in change (it's no fun to do this if you have to go out and ask for the specific ones you need) and because they were all the same design style, and because the portraits were so fantastically ugly. I'd show you, but I can't find any images online that are as ugly as the actual coins.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a lot of people got into the state quarters. Also, I mean, that's 25 cents. Collecting dollar coins is a bit expensive during a recession. :P

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Tumble dryers may be standard, but washing lines aren't :-(

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

It's true, though they're also quite cheap to acquire! I think in parts of the country where it's regularly sunny, they must be quite useful. I knew people who had them, but they were always a bit eccentric. ;)

I have to say that while I love the idea of washing lines, and I do like the feeling of hanging things out on a (rare) sunny day, I miss having clothes that are soft and fluffy and dry the same day, instead of waiting several days for them to be a bit stiff and crispy!

[grrlpup]

The beige-ish and pink-ish US money ($10 and maybe some other bills?) is fairly new, an anti-counterfeiting measure. Unfortunately, it muddies the contrast-- people with low vision find it measurably more difficult to distinguish the denominations. The one-dollar bills are the same as ever; there's a law on the books saying they can't be altered.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I didn't know about that law - it explains a lot. I wonder why it's there?

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

What grrlpup said about the US currency. It's been remodeled slightly over the last decade or two. The only amusing part of following US currency is watching for the changing signatures as new Treasurers and Secretaries of the Treasury take office and their bills slowly make their way out into the public. The new Secretary of the Treasury created some controversy because he had a signature which, honest to ghu, looked like this, (http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/05/07/copy-of-lewsignature092way_wide-90f31dbba7474a14ef15755182c4479bfb31ebb8-s6-c30.jpg) though in his new office he is trying to do a little better. (http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/05/07/jacklew_custom-fa9956634c1e27ebfb3812a53c5ea08164d2a87d-s4.png)

There has been much fuss lately about US ATM cards not working in Europe because they only have magnetic stripes, not chips. I don't know if that's important the other way around. If your card has a chip, does it also still have a stripe? Does it have the name of a network like "Plus" on it? Then it should work.

I'm not sure what strange_complex means about the majority of ATMs in the US being stand-alone machines. We do have lots of these, but we also have lots built into banks, too. Maybe there's more of the stand-alone machines in NYC than elsewhere. I never use stand-alone machines. They're easily hacked, and they often charge ridiculous fees. Ask your bank about their fees (you can get hit both ways with these) and whether they have any reciprocity agreements with any US banks, esp. ones operating in Massachusetts. (US banks are interstate now, but the prevalence of different ones varies tremendously by location.)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice. My cards have both strips and chips, I think, but I shall play it safe and bring plenty of money wrapped in a five-pound note.

It seems that Mr Lew was suffering delusions of being a Slinky.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Considering the brevity of the trip, avoiding the ATM altogether if not necessary may be wise.

Considering your reference, be assured that we have honey in the US, though.
You'd probably have difficulty getting it past airport security.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Yes, they might confiscate it. And, if it's any good, eat it.

[bluerosesgirl.livejournal.com]

You'll be in my neighborhood! Hurrah hurrah. Waving from Dorchester.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

*waves back*!

[ookpik.livejournal.com]

I am usually in the same neighborhood, but I'll be at Readercon for the weekend. :) (Bluerosesgirl, do I know you? Hello, in any case.)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Well, let's meet up at Readercon, then!

[roselet.livejournal.com]

Pelican crossings? Not zebra?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Zebra crossings are different. They don't beep or have green figures - merely flashing Belisha beacons, indicating that pedestrians have right of way.

I still think of pelican crossings as newfangled innovations, although Wiki tells me they came in in 1969 and are already being phased out in favour of puffins (don't ask).

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

1969, really? I too think of them as newfangled.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I think part of the problem is that, while Pelicans, Puffins and the rest are all distinct crossings, they can also all be called zebra crossings.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Q. When is a zebra not a zebra?
A. When it's red all over with the blood of confused pedestrians.

[larryhammer]

I have to ask: puffins?

---L.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's a brand. Just as Allen Lane branching out from Penguins to Puffins and Pelicans, so the the Ministry of Transport made the same move from a different starting point - the self-evidently named zebras. For puffin crossings and ill-starred panda crossings, follow the links (remembering to look both ways first).

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

The problem with puffins is people being in the way so you can't see the status of the green/red man. Plus I keep looking across the road and not realising it's a puffin rather than a pelican

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Then there's toucans. Tigers seem vanishingly rare.