Saturday, June 10

the demise of the $10 bill

In the past several months, I've noticed the reluctance (?) of retailers to give me a $10 bill in change; rather, they commonly hand me two $5 bills instead. This has happened to me dozens of times (given that ATMs love to dispense $20 bills, it's only natural that I start with twenties and end up with a mix of 10/5/1* bills).

So .. what is it with the $10 bill that makes merchants want to hoard them? Or am I just imagining things?
* $2 bills? Yeah, right. Like you've seen one of those outside a theme park, or a survey, within the last twenty years.
When Gene Bob becomes King, he'll make the $1 bill (paper) illegal, and mandate a redesigned $1 coin (maybe with a hole in the middle). I'll also get rid of the penny (1¢ coin) and replace it with a 2¢ coin, with Dilbert's face on the front. All change would be rounded to the nearest 2¢.
Deep thought #666: have you ever noticed how members of the KKK won't accept a penny as change, because it has Abraham Lincoln's photo on the face? I suspect they think a penny in their hand would burn through their flesh.
And everyone would live happily ever after. The End.

1 comment:

William Bob said...

What's happening is that retailers are very aggressive at making it look like there is very little money in the till. 10's and 20's go into a drop safe. And as long as they have enough 5's and 1's to make change a casual observer may overlook the fact that the stacks of 5's and 1's are each three feet high. No 10's and no 20's means no money. Not worth killing the clerk for.