Counterfeit!

Friends,

You will be sad to learn that I've become a victim of a crime: counterfeiting. About a week ago, I got change for a twenty when I was buying a falafel sandwich for lunch. This place at the mall sells them, and they are SO delicious. Anyway, the guy gave me 3 fives as change. Later, though, I was looking at one of the fives and it just didn't look right. So I compare it to one of the other ones. Sure enough: it was too small, and it just didn't look as clear. Plus the paper didn't feel the same. I showed it to some friends, and one smelled it. She said it smelled all right, but otherwise it was just off. So, here's what my choices were:

1. Pay for something using my phony five, and pass the problem on to somebody else.
2. Use the five to buy another delicious falafel sandwich, passing the problem on to the next wrap customer with a twenty.
3. Turn it in to a bank or something.

It was quite a dilemma. So, I started with the internet. A google search for "What to Do with a Counterfeit" turned up a couple of responses. I was to either contact the local police or the Secret Service. Wow!

When I called the Secret Service, I talked to a real friendly guy who basically looked up the serial number on the front of the bill to see if it was in his database. It wasn't. I thought it was cool, though, that they have a nationwide database of counterfeit bills. It seems likely to me that five-dollar bills are under the radar screen for this kind of thing. He suggested I try taking it to my bank to see if they'd trade me for it. Unfortunately, I bank by mail, so my bank was helpful, but they couldn't arrange it. (Unless I wanted to fly to San Antonio. This is one of the first times I've ever regretted not having a local bank.)

So, I went to the bank downstairs from where I work. The teller wouldn't trade me for another five, unfortunately. But she did agree to turn it in and make a report. So now I'm out five dollars for being honest. It's a difficult truth, but sometimes virtue requires sacrifice. In this case, that price was five dollars.

At any rate, it was interesting seeing a professional (the teller) explain how she could tell right away that the bill was a fake. "You can just see it--there are no fibers. Oh, and it's been cut. Look--it's not even. Here, feel the paper--it feels different." She went on like that for a while.

Apparently, she said, "Somebody just had too much time on their hands."

So, friends, that is the saga of how I volunteered myself to lose $5, rather than to keep bad money in the system. But now I can imagine the rough justice the Secret Service will dispense with my valuable information:

A SWAT team will come charging into some house in Columbia, MD, gigantic machine guns at the ready--as if to rescue Elian Gonzales. They'll thump down the stairs into a basement, where some kid is making color photocopies of five-dollar bills. (For an approximate cost of $3.50 each, including ink, paper, and printer maintenance). They'll shout: "Along with disrupting the flow of commerce, you screwed Amy __________ out of $5! You have the right to remain silent...."

Awesome.