Do you carry around funny money?
May 26th, 2005 | by mbhunter |You know … $2 bills, half dollars, Sacagaweas. The kind of legal tender people don’t see every day.
I do every once in a while. I’ll go to the credit union and get a roll of gold dollars and dole them out. They’re fun for tips and for buying Girl Scout cookies.
Other times I get stuff like this:
“Why are you giving me these things?”
Or, when I hand a cashier four half dollars for a drink that costs $1.61,
“It’s $1.61.”
MBH: “Yes, I gave you $2.”
Cashier: “No, you still owe me 61 cents.”
MBH: “No, you owe me 39 cents.”
Cashier: “This is a dollar.”
MBH: “No, these are half dollars. Two of them make a dollar. Four of them make $2.”
Cashier figures it out. (I did spring this on her during Christmas season, so she was probably very tired.)
Mike Bolesta wasn’t so lucky. He heard this at Best Buy when paying an installation charge in nothing but $2 bills:
“You have the right to remain silent…”
Though Best Buy was not legally obligated to accept the 57 $2 bills that Mr. Bolesta offered as payment, it’s comical that it went so far that the Secret Service was brought in. Probably not comical from Mr. Bolesta’s point of view, though.
I still think it’s fun to spend unusual denominations. I just won’t do it at Best Buy. Or maybe I will, just to see if they’ve heard the story 
