100s of ways to waste €10

Have you ever tried to waste €10? There are hundreds of ways you could do it. Flush it down the toilet, roll it so it looks like a cigarette and set fire to it, send it through a document shredder, give it to the Millennium Project or why not buy a €10 lottery ticket. My friend Kenny Liew is good at wasting money and he occasionally does it via the lottery ticket-tactic (although I have pointed out that it’s both quicker and less frustrating to flush it down the toilet).

Anyway, whichever style you prefer, I have invented a new one which may interest you. This is how you do it:

You cross the Fleuve Maroni river, which separates St Laurent (French Guyana) from Albina (Suriname) and pay the boatsman €5 for the passage. This is the standard price after you have bargained it down from the “white-guy-price of €10”. You walk up to the Suriname immigration office and try to get into the country. Then the officer tell you that even though you are a European citizen, you need some kind of a stupid exit stamp from the French authorities on the other side (which you probably haven’t even seen because they are almost invisible). He will tell you that you cannot enter Suriname at this moment. Instead, you have to go back to the boats, bargain hard again, pay €5 to return to the French side, get the idiotic stamp and pay another €5 to have the pleasure to meet the Surinamese border official again. If you are clever, you have already agreed with the same boatsman to take you back in five minutes for same price. He will probably think you are stupid but happily agree and it at least saves you from some bargaining.

Back in the immigration office, the officer will smile, notice your wet trousers that were hit by several waves during the bumpy boat ride, wonder if its river water or sweat, and finally ask if you are tired. That is the moment when you think:

“It’s not so much being tired but those blood-sucking boat drivers eat euros just as it was a Big Mac. Now I am €10 lighter only because of you, you son-of-a-bitch!”

You must only think this but not actually say it aloud. Or you may lose more than €10.

The bloodsuckers' boats