For reasons that are way too boring to get into, I haven’t got a UK bank account, and UK banks are very different from American banks. Like, you know how, if you have good credit, you can usually go into an American bank with some money and open a checking account, which’ll be active pretty much immediately? Here that process takes three weeks. Also, the notion of signing a check over to someone else is entirely forbidden. What this means is that when I get paid for something in pounds, as opposed to when I work for American companies and get paid in dollars, I have to take my check to a pawn shop or one of those shady check-cashing places to actually see the money, even though my wife has a perfectly good bank account.

“Living off the grid” is not something that the United Kingdom encourages. I know that Americans under George Bush tend to assume sometimes that they’ve got the worst deal when it comes to civil liberties and stuff, especially compared to the bountiful harmony of Western Europe, but let me assure you, it’s worse over here. What with the truly crushing number of CCTV cameras dotting every street of the entire country, the Oyster Card system that allows the transit police to track your movements- which they do, sometimes just for fun*- and the penalties imposed for cashing a check if you plan to, like, keep your money under the mattress instead of putting it in a bank like a proper citizen, the creepy V For Vendetta eyes of the state peer into your life in ways that would give John Ashcroft such a boner he’d uncover the breasts of lady Justice and rub ‘em for good luck.

The end result is that I had to go to a check-cashing place today and pay £66 ($128.81) just to get the damn thing cashed.

The place I went to was called The Money Shop, and I went there because they advertised a 2.9% rate, which is pretty good for England, even though it’d be outrageous in America. It turns out that the rate is only available if you bring in a coupon that has to be obtained from a troll who guards a bridge out in Lincolnshire, and so I didn’t have one. The young woman at the counter informed me that I’d have to pay 4.99%, and I sent her back to call the head office.

“Okay, they can do 4.5%.”

“Go on back and ask ‘em again. Tell them I threatened to leave.”

“They said 4%.”

“Tell them I got really sad, and mentioned something about feeling betrayed. Tell them I was going to go to the pawn shop across the street.”

“Three and a half.”

“One more time- do you want me to call? Tell them that I know they can give a 2.9% rate if they want to. It says so on your sign. Tell them I’ll wander around the streets of Turnpike Lane until I find someone who’ll give me that rate, if it won’t be them.”

“They’re budging at 3%. It’s a £6 difference. Do I need to-”

“No, that’s fine. They win this round.”

“Thanks. Now, I just need a little bit of information for our records… What’s your occupation?”

“I’m a race car driver.”

Yes, this is how I make myself feel better about the hundred and thirty bucks I have to pay just to get my own money. But what the hell? The way the dollar’s moving against the pound, I’ll lose at least that much by Monday by the exchange rate alone.

Anyway, the point of this is not for my bitter ranting about the unfairness of the current exchange rate policy. Jesus, who would want to read about that? Instead, I’ll offer an observation.

The Money Shop pretty much exists for the sole purpose of catering to the needs of a desperate immigrant population. The way the young woman who helped me with my business today squealed when she saw my American passport may inform you that your narrator, while technically something of a desperate immigrant, is rather non-exemplary of the typical Money Shop patron. Mostly it’s people from Africa or the Caribbean (and occasionally Poland) who are working over here without the necessary paperwork (and it’s a lot of paperwork) to open a checking account.

Yet have a look at their advertising:

Gosh, that’s a lot of young, attractive, fresh-faced white people for a usurious enterprise that caters to desperate migrant workers. I’m not really sure what they’re going for here- do they think that, like, upwardly mobile-looking white folks like the ones in the ads are gonna be all, oh, the money shop is for people like us! Screw the bank, where I’m not charged downright criminal fees for simple transactions, the money shop is my shop! How about showing some poor elderly Eastern European man with his pockets hanging out? Because I met that guy in the shop today, but there wasn’t a single person in there forking over 5.99% of their paycheck while holding a beachball.

(*I was stopped once by TfL agents who just wanted to be sure that the picture on the card looked enough like me.)

(picture of Money Shop franchise inside converted church just outright stolen from this person’s Flickr)