All about the Benjamins

The security deposit for our apartment had to be in the form of a certified check, not a personal check, and so I virtually emptied my gasping bank account on Saturday and ferried the money to our new landlady. Dave reimbursed me with a stack of bills on Sunday (bartenders always have cash on hand), and on Monday I headed to CitiBank to resuscitate my account. I was relieved to hand the wad of cash to the lady behind the bulletproof glass; walking around New York with over a grand in cash is not the way to spend what should be a carefree, sunny morning, even if one has to travel only about a block and a half through an affluent neighborhood.

I was interrupted from filling out the deposit slip by the testy observation, "This is fake." I blinked and begged the cashier's pardon. "This one, it's fake," she elaborated, waving what looked a lot like a one hundred dollar bill at me. "It's paper." It was obvious that I was already a complete imbecile for not recognizing this fact myself, so I did not point out the local custom of using paper currency in the United States.* "Uh, it is?" I contributed after a lengthy pause.

"Feel the difference." She stuffed the apparent counterfeit and a true blue Benjamin through the slot at the bottom of her window. I extended tentative fingers and thumbs to rub each bill. They felt the same to me. "And look, it tears," she continued, ripping about half an inch into the fake. "And look." She ripped half an inch into the real one before I could even yelp. The fact that both motions produced a tear did not seem to faze her; the identical-looking rips apparently provided a bulletproof argument to anyone with more than ten brain cells.

"Uh… so… what…." I stammered, wondering whether I was about to be clapped in irons. She was already busily stabbing at a keyboard and moments later I heard a printer begin to hum. I learned that she would be sending the bill to the Federal Department of.... Something for examination. If it was real ("obviously not," her gum seemed to snap at me), the amount would be deposited into my account. If it was indeed a fake ("more like 'when'" said her cocked head), I should submit the freshly printed form to my accountant in spring of 2011 and I would get the money back in my tax return. So, she assured me, I had a mere 16-or-so months to wait.

Following the successful deposit of the rest of the actual money I'd brought, I contritely perused the form on my way out of the bank. I noted that she'd typed in the branch and the amount of the money and checked the box that declared that I didn't appear to be suspicious. While ordinarily I dislike being typecast, I decided that this time I could live with it.

*Yeah, yeah, it's printed on a blend of cotton fibers. Whatever. Looks like paper to me.