last i checked, the nickel is still legal tender

it was 11:45pm and my abnormally stressful-after-no-sleep-and-issues-with-next-week's-trip-to-italy reception shift was coming to a close. the door opened and a tiny man whose face was partially covered in white paint stood in front of me requesting a room. hesitantly, i opened the door for him. no one was around except Joe, one of our current cleaners, who was talking to me because he couldn't sleep. the man, who turned out to be polish and spoke no english, apologized for his appearance. through hand motions he explained that he needed a place to stay tonight. my patience was running low, but i booked him a bed and told him he owed 18,50. he apologized again and began pulling something out of his pocket. next thing i knew, there were piles and piles of change sitting on the desk in front of me. joe was still standing at the desk, laughing, and i stared in disbelief. i began to fish for the 1 and 2 euro coins, when the man stopped me again and apologized. he pointed to the 5, 10, and 20 euro cent coins, and again through motioning, asked me to use those first. i began digging through the mountain of change in front of me, using the smallest coins first and taking out the turkish, polish, and 1 & 2 euro cent coins (all of which we can't accept). at that point, i couldn't help but laugh along with joe. every once in awhile when i'd pull out a foreign coin of some kind, the man would pick it up and insist that joe or i keep it as a present. during the ten minutes or so that it took me to dig through this pile of change, joe asked him questions. the man responded through more motions-- he was a street performer and that's why his face and hands were partially covered in paint. this explains the mountains of change he carries around with him; that is where he gets his money. he pulled out a crate and stood on it, trying to explain his gig. eventually we got the whole change thing sorted out and i looked at the piles in the register that the nightman would have to count in the morning after working all night, and i asked the man if i could take his picture. he agreed and decided to put on the whole getup for me. without further ado, the man and his victim (joe):