The Bureau of Engraving and Whatnot

I just got back from a visit to the bank, and on the way back I fashioned some comedic lampoons for my own amusement (and yours, too, I sincerely hope - we'll see how much of a sour puss you are).

I went to the bank to buy a cashier's check to make my child support payment, which is two days late as of today. My Dad used to accuse me of being allergic to "chores", and he was right. I break out in beehives, and sometimes I experience twitching and sudden bouts of flatulence. So I have to plan my chores carefully in order to compensate for all the side effects.

My child support payment seemed rather steep today, even though the little tyke is worth more than a trillion times that much, I'm not exaggerating. Fortunately I love standing in line at the bank waiting to see the teller, and the whole rigmarole about how she can't approve it because it is over $500 and her supervisor is with another customer. So please wait and wait and wait. I love all that, don't you?

But then as a kid I used to love picking at a scab until it got swollen and infected too. Pus is one of my least favorite things in the world, and yet I find it strangely fascinating - is there a pus pouch in the body that we weren't told about in school? Or maybe pus glands, I don't know. I certainly wasn't a biology major, even if I had graduated from college.

We won't dwell on pus anymore, I don't why it came up in the first place. Oh yes, I was relating it to the experience at the bank!

Why do we bother with currency anymore in the first place? This is a serious question, once again, not a flippant or rhetorical one like most of them. I use my check card so often that even American currency has become foreign to me. I'll never forget when the 1999 version of the dollar bill came out - I thought I had been transported to Merry Old England or something! They weren't that gaudy or silly looking, but they sure weren't the old Greenbacks I grew up with! Something about my childhood was lost that day, something innocent that is now forever gone.

Pennies lost their right to survive in the Darwinian money chain back in the early 70's, right before the oil embargo or thereabouts. Nowadays they gather in unsightly piles on my countertops, or they congregate in my pockets for the sole purpose of setting off airport alarms. Before the 70's, a penny on the ground was called a "lucky penny". Nowadays it's about as lucky as finding a cigarette butt - at least the butt might have a couple good drags left on it! (Remind me to tell you a story about my sister Susie that will curl your toe hairs).

Last summer I visited the hallowed halls of the Bureau of Engraving and Whatnot in Washington D.C. There I saw the entire wealth of this Great Land of ours, freshly minted on stacks of cloth paper, perched on wooden palettes stretching all the way up to the ceiling (not the palettes, the sheets of paper)! It took something of the awe and mystery out of it, I must adimit. The guys who move those stacks around must be about as thrilled by a one dollar bill as I am (as in, not thrilled at all).

I don't have to worry about this for long, and neither do you. Because if you don't know about a new technology on the horizon called Blue Tooth, then you are about to get bitten in the you-know-what (yep, right in the old petard, that's where!)

Blue Tooth is a wireless networking technology that can be planted into credit cards, license plates or even our brains from what I can gather. It will allow a vending machine to poll your bank balance on your debit card as you walk by, making you a special offer on a soft drink and chips if you buy two at once! Hey, big spender! And of course giving you the "frequent junkie" discount that junk food junkies deserve!

My, oh my. Can't you just imagine the bugs that will have to be worked out of the system in the beginning? When some computer, Fred or whomever, goes blundering off on some literal interpretation of a figurative command? Large withdrawals might be erroneously made from the bank accounts of innocent passers by, left and right. If you're lucky, you'll find some black ink on your next statement, where only red ink was before! I'm usually not that lucky, are you?

I think the biggest Stupid Human Trick that was foisted on the American public during the entire 20th Century was the old "one ounce of gold for one dollar bill" scam. Before FDR came on the scene, it was rumored any old American Joe or Jane could saunter in to Ft. Knox and exchange their fresh dollar bill for a Faulkland bar of gold! I read that somewhere when I was a kid, maybe a History book, and from that I hatched a great scheme!

That's right, I would save up enough dollar bills to make my own Golden Calf! Not to worship, silly, I was a good Southern Baptist boy. I mean to ride, rope and wrestle with, because I was a cowboy, dontcha see? Who would want to carry a tired old bill around when a glistening bar of gold could be sitting on your dresser? Not me! In fact, some of the bills in my collection looked like they were used by some G.I. Joe to buy cigarettes during the Battle of the Bulge! They were long past retirement age by then, but were still pressed into service to our Country, Bob Hope and the boys "Over There"!

Enough money jokes for now. There are plenty more where those came from, along with the story about my sister Susie that will probably result in a communications freeze-out between us lasting many weeks or months. But what the heck - I know she really loves me! Don't you, Susie, sweetie?