British Pound Currency Conversion Disapoints Roosevelt Island Resident - Guess He's No George Soros

You Tube video of currency conversion glasses

Each week, I look forward to reading the NY Times Metropolitan Diary column for the slice of life letters written by average New Yorkers describing a humorous or interesting experience they witnessed. Here's a story about a visitor getting on the Red Bus and overhearing the following currency market conversation between Roosevelt Islanders. This tale comes to us not from the Metropolitan Diary but from Livejournal's third reel:

Trams fly past the window of our room. We have a view of a bridge that alternately makes me hum Simon & Garfunkel and David Mead songs, and alongside the bridge there are cables that carry trams across the river. (I'd never heard the word "tram" used to describe an above-ground cable car before, so I was puzzled the first time Stee mentioned them.) So for another why-the-hell-not moment, we took the tram over the river, took a bus around Roosevelt Island, then came back.

At the bus's first stop after the tram station, the driver flipped out the wheelchair ramp and a grizzled man in a wheelchair and army uniform got on the bus. He told the driver, "Guess what? I got robbed today. By the bank."

I heard the driver's voice, muffled by the barrier between us, "How did that happen?"

"They exchanged money for me, but didn't give me enough. Last night, I was sleeping on Forty-Second Street, and this lady came and put a twenty-pound note in my pocket. So I took it to the bank, right? And they give me $32.45 for it. And I know that ain't right."

A muffled follow-up question from the driver.

"No, see, a pound is five dollars. So I should have got more than that."

"I think a pound used to be a buck fifty or so."

"No, a pound is five dollars. I always known that. So cause I have twenty pounds, they shoulda given me eighty."

The driver said, "Are you sure?"

"No, I ain't sure! But I do know that a pound ought to be five dollars. One dollar, that's a shilling."

For the record, according to XE described as the world's favorite currency site, as of today a 20 pound English note is worth 39.2261 American dollars. Looks like our fellow Roosevelt Islander is no George Soros when it comes to the British Pound.

On a more serious note, why is a Roosevelt Island resident sleeping overnight on 42nd street?