30,000 dollars Bank Heist, Minus the Theft Part

 $30,000 Bank Heist, Minus the Heist

Money I like money! I wish I had some money right now. All gone!

As I geared up to leave Japan after three years I contemplated what to do with my buckets of money. And by buckets I mean a lot. But don’t try to rob me its all gone now. As the saying goes "Never trust a man with the money, you can be guaranteed it will be spent on drugs, alcohol, gambling or wasted on things they don’t need", like in my case.
Yes, even after spending large amounts of cash across three years at the dollar store (I almost went everyday) I had managed to save quite a bit believe it or not. $30,0000 is quite impressive if I can toot my own horn.
I’ll never forget the first day when I bought 100 items and the teacher said “I’ve never seen anyone buy so much at the dollarstore”. I smiled and told him, “And that’s just today, I’m planning to come back tomorrow!”. And the best part. I did!
As you may know I was on the JET Programme which is a Japanese government sponsored program.
A lot of people are able to save a lot of money since we were paid fairly well and in most cases, our apartment or living rental is subsidized. I knew of a few people who were able to to pay off their University loans. In my case, I just collected the buckets of money and dreamed of dollarstore glory.
So what should I do with the money I thought. How should I transfer it or should I just carry it in my suitcase, so it will be like a drug deal. When they ask me at the airport how I got all that money, I’ll be like, “Well, I Taught English for three years. I basically got paid to be beaten”.They would probably arrest me and say, "Must be drug money, there is no way you can get beaten in Japan by students, they are too nice". Not at my school.
The exchange rate was terrible! In fact it was the worst it had been since I had arrived in Japan.
Me, being the person I am, was not prepared to lose any money on the exchange rate. I was thinking I could make money on the exchange rate. If I waited long enough.
How long though, I didn’t even want to think about.
My final decision was to sit on the money, literally and figuratively. I thought since I had a post office (bank) account I would put all my money in the post office bank account (no fee to hold it), give someone I trusted my post office bank card (preferably someone rich so they don’t want to steal my money)  and for them to send it to me when the exchange rate was better.
The only issues I had was that my approximately $30,000 dollars was sitting in a different bank account across town and they wanted me to pay to transfer it. Ridiculous I thought! Who pays to have money transferred (I guess they do everywhere I found out later).. I’m a loyal customer of three years, the least they can do is transfer it for me. So I showed up during my last few days. I brought my ID and told them, “Hi, I’d like my $30,000 dollars please”. They suggested I transfer it and pay the $20 for the transfer. Seriously? I lose $20! I could buy twenty things the dollarstore with that.
I told them no, I want cash.
They prepared the bills in my bulletproof case (that's a joke about bulletproof case) and asked if I was OK. I said ya no problem and tossed the $30,000 into my old backpack. Now, had I been in the United States, or possibly Canada I may not have done this. Walking around with $30,000 is a bit of a risk.
To make the risk even greater I had ridden (rode?) my scooter. Plus my backpack was so old the zippers weren't staying together. Not to worry I thought, should be fine. Maybe.

This bag should hold the money well I thought.  The odd hole, hopefully no money will fall out.

I started up my scooter and drove to the other side of town. Since it was probably the last day I would get to use my scooter I gunned it, thinking about how I won’t be able to enjoy the wind through my hair again, nor the typhoons and rain in my eyes. I had forgotten the bag wasn’t closed very well.
I arrived at the post office. The teller asked what I’d like to do. I told her deposit $30,000 dollars.
She was like OK nonchalantly. I pulled my backpack off and noticed the zipper was open more than hallway, whoops!
There was a man standing pretty close behind me as well, so I was lucky he hadn’t put his hand in and taken any.Its OK though, he's Japanese I doubt he would.
She counted the money as I hoped to high hell it was all there.
I waited another three years before the exchange rate was what I considered good enough to transfer. I ended up paying 50$ per $10,000 to send to Canada, so $150.
In the end I paid more for waiting then the damn $20 to have to it transferred to the post office and avoid any risk. Plus I could have just taken it with me and lost less money on the exchange rate.
Oh damn, just my luck!
$150 to transfer! Can you believe that. Damn I could have bought 150 things at the dollarstore!

It's basically my Disneyland. Where dreams come true.  $1 everything!

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Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

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