keep the change

here's my quandry. i owe this man lots of money, let's say around $400. i am not even going to tell you why. you wouldn't believe me. but hey its egypt, so there is an explanation. he's kind of a shady character and runs with a not so great crowd. if you can tell i have kind of fallen in with a bad crowd. i know this is incredibely stupid, its relieving the whole mustafa debacle all over again. but anyway he leaves for new york tomorrow and he knows where i live. i have twelve hours left before he goes i am trying to think what to do. i can't really go to the police but i can't go home. should i just hang out on the streets for twelve hours at auc and then cafes until morning. or ride the subway until tomorrow. or pay him. neither of these three seem particularly appetizing. (neither was the sushi) so anyway...april fools. yes, its days late and not even that funny, but its something. sorry.

here are some observations and my real debacle.
-the bottled soda top is the bane of the cairene street. they are littered everywhere and are crushed and pressed into the road. it is the equivalent of the spit, dried up, and blackened gum on the streets in the united states.
-the $1 menu at mcdonalds is the 5 pound menu here in eygpt.

which leads me to my problem. there exists plenty of small change here in egypt. i have even had my hands on a bit of it. but what is the problem is that the bank machines give out notes in 50 and 100 pounds. this creates a problem for me, shopping for one person for every meal about how to go about getting small change. it is about as elusive as the black-breasted puffleg. small notes are critical because everywhere requires them, but everything is so cheap that when buying for just yourself you can't walk into a ful shop order two tamiya and hand over a benjamin (well the egyptian equivalent of a benjamin-so an andrew jackson).

this is my problem, i am constantly trying to think of ways to break down the big bills. so far my solutions have included timing my shopping for a set of groceries with using a big bill (which somethimes doesn't work out with the shopkeeper) to going to mcdonalds ordering something for five pounds (which is how i know about the 5 pounds menu) and keeping the change. yes i admit i have been to mcdonalds here-3 times more than i have been in the united states within the past year or maybe two-i find that funny. they usually don't give me trouble for getting change. so my question to you is-do you have any ideas for getting small change? humerous or otherwise.

thanks a million, oh and here are some awesome definitions from answers.com:

skein-
A length of thread or yarn wound in a loose long coil.
Something suggesting the coil of a skein; a complex tangle: a twisted skein of lies.
A flock of geese or similar birds in flight. See synonyms at flock1.
shrewdness-
The quality of being shrewd.
An aggregation of apes. See synonyms at flock1. (© Houghton Mifflin Company)
Usage: The noisy shrewdness of apes surrounded the delighted anthropologists.
ruck
A multitude; a throng.
The undistinguished crowd or ordinary run of persons or things.
People who are followers, not leaders.
Sports.
A play in Rugby in which a mass of players gathers around a ball dropped by a tackled ball carrier, with each player attempting to gain possession of the ball by kicking it to a teammate.
The mass of players during such a play. Also called loose scrum.