I didn't notice at the time, but clearly when I got home to do my "how much did THAT weekend cost me?" assessment, I realized the issue. Digging through my purse, wallet and pockets, I quickly surmised that the missing half was not on my person and I had been given this half of a twenty in error. Or on purpose. Either way, I had a completely split bill, and the other half was not to be found.
I have been carrying it around with me, partly out of forgetfulness to do something about it, and partly because I didn't know WHAT to do with it. Several unethical and immoral solutions came to mind:
- Switch it out for a good $20 in a restaurant bill booklet and hightail it off the premises as quickly as possible.
- Try to pass it off in a stack of money at a store, tucking it in gently behind other bills of full size.
- Attempt to buy a large Giordano's pizza with it, hiding the fragment in between the hefty driver's tip.
- Clutch it in my fist and wave it as a "bartender flag" for quick attention and prompt service, only to shove it back inside my wallet when served.
- Send it to my sister and tell her to buy $10 worth of gas on me.
- Give it to the homeless man in front of Starbucks in the hopes that his dazzling smile of gratitude will be worth the deception.
Clearly, none of these options work. They're either too mean, too illegal, too cunning or too difficult to pull off.
The legal, government-approved solutions were far less entertaining. I knew that I could go to the bank and see what they'd say. One idea was to try to claim that the ATM spit it out in a stack of other twenties, but the audience to whom I put this idea immediately shot that one down, saying that the ATM is a computer and computers don't make mistakes like that.
For fear of having the Chase Bank representative humiliatingly catch me in that twisted and unreasonable web of deception, I went for the real truth. Ok, so the doctored truth.
Yesterday, I walked over to the branch near my office, and planned to approach the friendly male teller. I smiled, shook my hair, and sashayed up to the counter, and put the mangled bill on the desktop in front of him. I announced, "I just got this as change, and when I realized it, the store told me to come into the bank, that there was nothing they could do." Brilliant smile, hair shake, eyelash bat.
He snickered, and said, "Man, that sucks," and followed up his honest response with, "Where did you say this happened?" I had to lie here, since it was two weeks ago and I have no freaking idea.
"Walgreens," I stated firmly. Serves 'em right for hiring lousy customer service reps over there at my local drugstore. He smiled (the knowing smile of someone who's been there) and said, "I'm sorry, but since this is clearly not more than 50% of the bill, we can't exchange it for you, much as I'd like to be able to. You'll have to visit this site for instructions on what to do."
Okaaay.
The government. The U.S. Treasury. Not exactly known for their flexible negotiating or understanding sympathetic personalities.
The website basically states that if it is a "mutilated currency" I can send it in by registered mail and see if they can refund it. The kicker is this: the only way it is legally exhangable for a new bill is if it is clear that the other half is destroyed. Basically, they don't want to pay you for a $20 if someone else out there could potentially claim that, too. URGH.
So, I think I'm screwed, and out $20. Which is 10 morning coffees, 3 lunchtime salads, 1 cute shirt at XXI, two pairs of earrings at Target or 4.5 gallons of gas. Depending on how I would have spent it. I'm voting on the caffeinated choice.
Blah. Should I reconsider options 1-3?
Side note for the curious: when I scanned this on our printer, and tried to open the PDF in Photoshop to resave it as a JPEG to upload it here, immediately I got a Photoshop message box indicating that it is illegal to print banknotes and the print function was therefore disabled. Interestingly smart for a computer program. Maybe that was true about the ATM after all?
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