Stupid Thing of the Week

Yesterday, I made a little business transaction with a stranger in a parking lot (no, not THAT kind of business transaction, but one much lamer), and I had to pay in cash (ditto). So, I scraped together all my money and had to borrow the rest, and met the guy in the designated area. I handed him the money, and took my purchase to my car.

When I turned around, he was standing next to me. "Hey," he said, "there's something wrong with a couple of the bills."

Immediately, I knew what he was talking about and sort of laughed it off, "Yeah, I've had those for a long time."

But he wouldn't laugh along. "Look at these twenties," he said, showing me the three pre-2000 bills with the smaller circles and less color. "The backs don't match either."

True enough, he turned them over and they didn't have the same art on the back that the new bills do. America has been changing the design on their currency little by little, making them more complicated and harder to counterfeit, and when the new twenties first hit, I remember people saying they looked like Monopoly money. I guess it's been long enough this guy got used to the new ones, but I'd never heard somebody think the old ones looked fake before.

For a minute there, I actually thought the guy was going to refuse to take them, which would've been a headache. But then, maybe I deserve a headache, for trying to use currency from the bloody 20th Century. Sad old man.

Rish "Monkeybags" Outfield