Maybe it is because I grew up in NYC but if someone said, "That's dirty money", I would automatically assume it was money that was being "laundered" by The Mob or money gained illegally through what ever means. (I also read too many crime novels and loved watching "The Godfather" movies over and over.) Hey, what can I tell you ! I have a vivid imaginations.
The term Dirty Money in this day and age has taken on an entirely new meaning. When was the last time you went IN TO a bank ? Or even to the drive up window where you are dealing with a live person as opposed to an ATM machine? I almost never carry cash with me, everything goes on the credit card so I can gain sky miles. (Another term that we never knew as kids . . . ) The fact that I have not been on a plane in well over a year doesn't stop me from accumulating those miles for the day that I will want to get on a plane and fly to Fiji never to return.
Back to the bank . . . Back in the day we were at the bank at least once every 2 weeks when the pay checks came home. There was no electronic deposit, just a plain old piece of paper check that needed to get signed and driven to the bank so it could be deposited in our account where the money would be available in three to ten days. (Remember those days of "floating checks" playing the game to see if you could pay a bill on Tuesday when it was due even though the money really wasn't in your account yet? Ah. . . fun times.) At that time all the banking transactions had to be done inside the bank. It was heaven when "Drive-through" windows came into existence. You still had to go to the bank but now you didn't have to get out of your car.
But whether you were IN the bank or at the drive-up window the teller, a real live person, spoke to you. They knew your family, asked how the kids were and counted out your money in front of you so you could count along with them, making sure you received the correct amount. (I remember when my first child was born I went to the bank and all business came to a screeching halt while every employee in the bank had to come out to see the new baby. Even the manager came out of her office so she could hold and admire my child.) It was a different world !
Not only would the teller count the money in front of you but she or he would turn the bills all in the same direction and if there was any money that was old and dirty they would pull it out and replace it with a newer one. The bank would take the old money and return it to the government where it would be destroyed. Paper money was a sacred thing and treated as such.
Not so any more !!!!! I went to the bank yesterday to get some cash to put in Christmas cards. (No, not your card!) I am still old school when it comes to Christmas "gifts" for the mail lady, the cleaning girls, the news paper deliverer. They preform a service for me and I like to let them know I appreciate what they do. (Considering the fact that our news paper is still being thrown into the bushes and on to the roof I did think twice about that Christmas gift.)
I went to the drive through window because I wanted specific denominations of bills. The girl at the window was very pleasant but it took her a good ten minutes to preform this task of counting out so many twenties, so many tens, so many fives . . . I swear she counted the money a minimum of six times but all of that counting went on off to the side of her window where I could not see what she was doing. After each count she would then put the bills into a machine that counted them. FINALLY she placed all the bills in a small white envelope and returned it to me. By now there were three cars in back of me so even though I had no idea if the amount was correct I did not want to take the time to count it right there. I assumed that all the counting she and her machine had done MUST have produced the correct amount. I pulled away from the window and parked in the bank parking lot where I counted my money.
I felt like I should put on latex gloves and have a gallon of hand sanitizer when I took the money out of its envelope. Talk about DIRTY !!!! First off, all the bills were turned in all different directions. (At least all the different denominations were together. ) I don't think I have ever seen a more nasty accumulation of paper money. Most of the money had corners bent down, edges frayed and looked like they had been buried in a sack in someones back yard for the past thirty years. The fact that they were upside down and backwards, all "willy nilly" drove me nuts. I can not imagine what the bank tellers of my youth would have thought at the mess that was handed to me yesterday. I'm sure they would have been horrified! They probably would have been fired for giving a customer such a rag-tag mess. Just another example of how sloppy our society has become.
I have brought this cash home and disinfected it all with a can of Lysol. I really don't need to be giving my mail lady Covid along with her Christmas bonus.
No comments:
Post a Comment