Saturday, February 7, 2009

That clinking, clanking sound


When I was a kid, one of my favorite things was going with my dad to the money machine. When we'd get the money, it was always new money. It was crisp and perfect and had that great smell. He would hand the money to us kids so that we could crinkle the money. It was an important job -- it prevented the bills from sticking together. When we gave it back, Dad would put it in his wallet and point out that the bills should all face the same way, and you should always keep the smaller bills in front. I still organize my money this way and am surprised when people don't have their money sorted in this fashion.

My parents would keep the extra money in a book (Sylvia Porter's "The Money Book," so clever!), a habit I started in grad school ("What It Takes", if you're wondering.) (See? I can be clever as well.) Of course, when you get money now, it's usually not brand new money. However, today when I got money, it was super-crisp new money. The bills all stuck together, and I had to take a few minutes to crinkle it. And I thought of being a kid and how it always seemed like it was so very much money.

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