New, Consecutive Money

So last week I took money out of the ATM and I received three fresh, crisp, never-before-used $20 bills.  And since they were fresh, crisp and never used before, the serial numbers were in order, one after the other.

First of all, I should say that I have this thing with fresh, crisp, never-before-used bills: I smell them.  It's kind of like that new car smell, only with new money.  Ever since I started, which was about a year ago, I can't help it.  Even if I'm about to give the bill to the cashier, I smell it first.  I know it's bad and makes me look really fucking strange, but there's something ... sacred about the scent of virgin money.  It's kind of like cutting the fins off of sharks.  Besides, I don't think I'll ever see that bill again, and even if I do ever get it back again it won't ever smell as fresh, so I might as well take a sniff.  I wonder if you smell it enough you take all the fresh bill smell away?

So the other OCD thing I have with fresh, crisp, never-before-used bills is that I don't want to break them up.  In that sense they're like orphaned siblings.  You can't break siblings up!  Before, at a time when I wasn't desperate for money, I would take out those sequential bills and save them.  I have several groups of singles stashed, oh, somewhere in my bedroom.  But when I got these three twenties last week, I couldn't bear to spend each of them in a different place.  They were "born" together, and they landed on my hands together.  I know that they're currency and therefore will be spent, and thus taken to different parts of the globe, eventually.  But they would never be together again, and I don't want to be the person who does that.

Therefore, a few days later I went to the ATM and deposited back those twenties, still stuck together, as they should be.  And I think the day after that I got more money out -- $200, to be exact.  And guess what?  They were all fresh, crisp, never-before-used $20 bills, all of them in consecutive serial numbers.  Well, fuck me.  I wasn't going to return these bills; I didn't have time, and I think this is a sign that I'm not supposed to shove bills back into the ATM.  So I broke up the siblings, like an evil asshole.  To defend myself, I spent most of these $20's at the stripclub last night, many of them on Claudia, my ATF.  In fact, I think I gave her five straight twenties.  So those are still together, or at least were when I gave them to her.  (OK, to be completely honest I gave her two twenties for dances, then she went up on stage, then I gave her three more twenties for dances.  But I'm sure they all had consecutive serial numbers.)

Before I parted with some of the money, however, I did sniff them in front of Claudia.  Buddha bless her, she didn't think give me a stinkface.  In fact, we kind of talked about how cool new money is.