They’ve done away with all the one- and two-cent coins in Australia. If you want to buy something worth $9.98, you have to round up to $10.00. On the other hand, if the item costs $10.02, you get to round down to the same ten bucks. It’s something a canny shopper has to keep track of when trying to save those extra couple of cents.

I was at the store yesterday, and the total came to $29.98. Which meant that I was going to have to pay $30. But I was not just going to capitulate like that. I had a trick up my sleeve.

“I’m going to use a credit card,” said I to the check-out girl. “Which means I pay only $29.98. In your FACE!”

She just looked at me for a moment, and said, “Now you don’t get your petrol voucher.”

A petrol voucher makes a liter of petrol four cents cheaper. You only get one if you spend… thirty dollars or more. She was right.

For a moment I wavered, but it was too late to go back.

“You may have won this one,” I said evenly, taking the groceries, “but there will be a next time.”

Oh, yes. There will.