Trading in the Centennial George Washington "Whiteface"

Recently I read--or maybe someone even posted as a comment to this site (I can barely remember what I did yesterday, I'm so zapped right now)--that you can catch Hepatitis C from snorting coke using something like 50% of the one dollar bills in circulation in New York City. Having snorted the white stuff out of dollar bills, or "Centennial George Washington White-faces," as I like to call them, for many years now, this got me a bit scared. Ironic, isn't it, that the damage I've likely caused to my body and mind from years of blowing rails doesn't even phase me, yet even the thought of catching a disease from a dollar bill--the likelihood of which is probably quite slim in reality--has me running for the hills? Or at least to the bank?

Well, irony can be pretty ironic sometimes. So, this past Saturday, armed with a stack of used George Washington White-face dollar bills that I've been hording for a few months--because I'm too embarassed to use them at the local five-and-dime as they're all dogged eared, rolled up and covered in coke residue--I dressed myself without the assistance of a friend or neighbor, donned my sunglasses, and hoofed it over to Commerce Bank on 14th Street (the only local bank in Manhattan opened on the weekends) to demand a trade-in. Now, right now you may be wondering: "if he wouldn't use the 'white-faces' at the local Korean bodega, why would he feel comfortable trading them in at a bank?" Well, if you are asking yourself this question, clearly you've never seen the clientele at the 14th Street Commerce Bank on a Saturday afternoon. Whoa, let me tell you, this crowd makes me look like McGruff the Crime Dog at the annual PBA Charity Fundraiser, if you know what I mean (which, incidentally, I do not). So when I got up to the teller, I wasn't the least bit reticent about asking to "trade in" my used dollar bills for some "alternative" currency.

Judging from the look the teller gave me (one of complete confusion), however, she clearly felt that my request was borderline nonsensical (though it might've just been the typical look one receives from a local bank teller). After replaying the incident in my head countless times since it occurred, however, I've decided that the reason the teller looked at me as if I had 3 heads (in other words, as if I were a coke-addict) was not because I had asked to trade in 46 rolled-up, wrinkled, coke-residue covered one dollar bills, but rather, because I asked her for 23 Thomas Jefferson two dollar bills in return for the ones.

Now, anybody who knows anything about American currency knows that the Jefferson two dollar bill was taken out of circulation long ago, and is thus difficult to come across, so when I made this request, the teller was understandably confused. But I was so jacked up from the night before, I didn't think my request was anything but reasonable. And thinking about it now, I still think it was. You see, the reason I asked for 23 twos, instead of 2 twenties, or 4 tens and a five, or 9 fives and a one, or--well, you get the point--was for the precise reason that it was an obscure request. Two dollar bills are rarely ever in circulation. As such, the chances of catching Hepatitis C--or any other disease for that matter--from a two, had to be, in my estimation, astrominically less than the chances of catching something using a one, or even a twenty, ten, or five. And 46 Susan B. Anthony Silver Dollars, of course, would've done me absolutely no good in my quest to purchase and/or use drugs at the Port Authority Bus Terminal--though I guess I could've used them to purchase bus tickets in the automated ticket machines there.

So after a bit of haggling with the teller, she called over the manager, who finally agreed to facilitate my request, so long as I put my shirt and shoes back on and left the bank, and promised never to return. I kindly obliged, took my 23 twos, made the trek back home, laid out a fat godfather, and blew my Hepatitis C-free line out a crisp, pristine Jefferson two-dollar bill. Sure, I could've just cut up a straw, or used a piece of paper instead of making a day out of obtaining "safer" cocaine utensils, but where's the challenge in that, really. Plus, lets face it--what else did I really have to do? And now, I'm sure to avoid Hepatitis C for good, so long as Pam Anderson doesn't give me sex for coke after catching wind of the monster stash I scored right outside the Greyhound ticket booth at the Port Authority the next day.