The kind of shopping — where you hand over notes and count out change in return — now happens only in the most minor of our retail encounters, like buying a bar of chocolate or a pint of milk, from a corner shop.
Authorities finally caught one notorious thief named Thomas Morgan and banned him from the fountain after he fished out thousands of dollars and change over 34 years using a magnetic stick.
He smiles benignly at each passenger, expecting him or her to put the correct change in the box, to obey the written and unwritten rules that govern each trip.
The shopkeeper knows that he could give the customer the wrong change, could shortchange the customer and get away with it; at least that customer wouldn't know.