I went to Panera the other day to suck down a bagel with cream cheese and soak up some free Wi-Fi.
My total of my purchase was around four bucks- and I paid with a twenty.
What happened next didn’t surprise me- as it happens nearly every time I present a cashier with a twenty, fifty or hundred dollar bill these days.
Before depositing my bill into the drawer and presenting me my change, the girl took out the counterfeit checker pen and drew a line on the bill- to assure herself of it’s authenticity.
This happens all the time.
It used to be only in the inner-city bodegas and corner stores that the clerks would need to check for counterfeit bills. But now, it’s virtually everywhere.
I’ve had bills checked at the grocery store, the corner store, the car wash, the diner, the bank, the liquor store…seems like the only place that doesn’t check for counterfeits is the bar.
I remember in the late-nineties reading about the prospect of a “cashless society” – a veritable utopia where every transaction would be swift and secure with the advent of the debit card.
“Pish, posh” I thought to myself. Cash will ALWAYS be king.
I also remember the switch from the old twenties to the new twenties- and then to the newer twenties- something about massive amounts of counterfeits rolling through.
Well isn’t it odd, today, that we have all of this new and secure paper currency- but virtually EVERY bill is checked for the fear that it may be a fake?
What happened?
I thought this was for our own good?
A friend of mine recently recounted a horror-story she experienced dealing with PNC Bank. You see, she had invested in a short-term CD which had reached it’s maturity. The amount was just over five thousand dollars. This friend, not unlike myself, prefers to deal in cash as much as possible. So upon receiving the certified bank check from the institution in which she invested the dollars, she deposited the check in her PNC account.
Several days later, she went to her home branch, filled out a withdrawal slip and presented it to the teller- the same teller she deals with nearly every time she goes to the bank. And this is where the fun began.
The teller asked to excuse herself for a moment- to confer with her manager- and came back to inform my friend that she’d have to wait “a few more days” to withdraw her cash.
She left the bank- frustrated, but patient.
She returned several days later, only to be told the same thing.
Long story short, it took her five trips to the bank and multiple phone calls to withdraw her hard earned, certified cash.
In the end, the reason given to her was “Well, it’s far above our average cash withdrawal. We needed to make sure you were who you said you were”.
I lived in Toronto from late 98 until mid 01- and every time I’d come home to visit, I always looked forward to getting those fat greenbacks in exchange for those puny Canadian coins.
The exchange rate was around 1.47 during the majority of the time I lived there. Meaning, for every US dollar I exchanged, I’d get one dollar and forty seven cents Canadian. And on the reverse, it was about sixty five cents for every Canadian dollar I wished to exchange to US currency.
Today, however, is a much different climate- a mere seven years later and the US dollar is worth LESS than a Canadian Loonie. One US dollar gets you about ninety-seven cents in the land of our neighbor to the north.
So what’s going on?
Our dollar is worth less and less with each passing day.
Our government continues to show signs that they simply cannot be trusted.
And girl at the Panera is convinced that Jersey Mike wants to pass her a fake twenty.
Can anybody break a fifty?
