Free Range Twenties

I was in a local department store this week and saw something interesting. The man in line in front of me was taking a long time at the register so I looked up to see what he was doing. The clerk was counting out a mountain of twenty dollar bills. She'd count out four or fix stacks of $100 and then put them on the ever growing pile. It went on for a while. When he left I asked if he had bought something with a thousand dollar bill. She was vague but between what she said and what I overheard when she call store management, it seems this older gentleman walked in with a large manilla mailing envelope and paid off his $5K store charge card in cash, a banded bunch of brand new twenties. Even from a distance I could see how crisp they were and thought there was a chance the clerk would cut herself on the edges.

I had never seen that much actual cash in one place before. It looks like monopoly money in such large quantities. Like something out of a movie. At home I was trying to explain to the family why it seemed so odd to have so much new money. It looks odd but trying to say exactly why is difficult.

Anyway, it was an unusual sighting.