A sequel to the popular thread from several years ago, about the $5 bill “26F.”
With 39P, too, the story begins in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington. The serial number begins with a “K,” so it is shipped to the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas, Texas; a local bank picks it up with the day’s currency shipment. At the bank, 39P is picked up by a westbound traveler who…
…stops at a gas station halfway between Abilene and Sweetwater. He uses his debit card for the gas, but on a whim, he decides he’s like a root beer from the vending machine. He doesn’t have any change or singles, so he trades in 39P for some quarters and singles. Doug, the proprietor of the gas station, wraps the bill in his roll of cash and puts it back in his coveralls where it sits until…
…a van filled with Canadian university students swings into the station. They buy gas, marveling at the low prices. (One student in the back of the van is trying to get the others’ attention by holding up a portable computer whose screen is displaying a headline Today’s Exchange Rates.) The driver accepts 39P in change.
Snacks in hand, restroom visits accomplished, the students peel put of the station in a spray of gravel, headed west. West, through valleys of foreclosed homes, through mountain passes, to…
(Reference: the original thread.)
…a motel in Spokane, whose mom-and-pop owners are having relatives in for the Christmas season. One is the eldest son, a senior at USC, whom the father allows to make change for a hundred-dollar bill he brought with him, since he found no stores open at that hour could break a hundred. The tourists had given 39P in partial payment for their rooms and the son later made change from the cash drawer. When he got back to USC, he…
…found he had lost the bill! 39P was still on the motel property. The Canadian tourists…
…included one with sticky fingers…
… who kept 39P without the slightest thought of trying to find its owner. He was known to smoke a bit of weed on occasion as well, and 39P became, at least technically, eligible for legal forfeiture when it was contributed to a hastily-organized pot of cash and given to a a guy who was hanging out across the street, who true to his word delivered in exchange a small baggie of Humboldt County, California’s, most potent crop in exchange. The guy in question, a part-time worker at a local electronics store, kept 39P for less than a day before he…
…used it to buy the final part for his electronics project, at a healthy employee discount of almost 1 percent. He took the part home, and assembled it into the project. He turned the project on.
Nothing happened.
Evidently the plans that had come to him in a burst of pot-catalyzed creativity needed some adjustment. He settled down to decipher his notes.
Unknown to him, however, something had happened, a little further away…
The electronics store, owned by a Korean couple, was broken into (for the 3rd time in as many weeks).
Kevin Muson, a small time thief and amateur poker player was not looking where he was going after the break-in and was struck by a moped being driven by Randy Harris, a blues musician on his way to a gig.
The bill flew out of Muson’s bag and landed in the street, where it was picked up…
A homeless lady, who instantly envisioned a “kid’s meal” for her next repast. Hurrying to McD’s she…
…bangs her cart into the care of someone coming the other way. There is a discussion, during which both participants lose track of the tenner. It falls to the ground. A squirrel picks it up…
Wanders into my yard where I bust a cap in its ass. Upon retrieving my meal I spot the ten and head to the local supermarket in search of some potatoes and carrots but on the way I spot a crack dealer and decide against spending it on food. The crack dealer sells me a piece of rock salt, upon my discovery of the salt, the crack dealer…
…high-tails it away from that corner, laughing his ass off that some crackhead just paid him $10 for a piece of rock salt. He decides to celebrate his windfall with a trip to a part of town where he’s pretty sure he’ll find Yolanda, whose services he finds a particularly good value. Yolanda’s there, all right, but she’s having none of it, because she remembers what happened last time (giving “stiff” a whole new meaning), so she snatches 39P out of his hand and…
high-heel-taps her way to the corner gas station, where she buys a pack of cigarettes and a soda. She leaves, and the clerk, admiring the view as Yolanda walks out the door, attempts to put 39P into the cash register. Unfortunately for the end-of-day counts…
…the distracted clerk simply shoves the bill in any old way, across the top of the cash drawer’s dividers, instead of putting it in the proper compartment. The store’s antiquated cash drawer allows the bill to get stuck to the ceiling of the drawer compartment. The till does not balance, and the cashier is fired. On the next shift, the bill drops down again, and at the end of the shift, that cashier reports a $10 overage. 39P is long gone by this time, riding in the wallet of a trucker bound for Wichita.
In a truck stop outside Boise…
A balding man approaching 40 orders a hamburger and an ice tea. He has been thinking a lot about the time he had spent in the Army, and sometimes he thinks about going back. The young man who is waiting this table in the truck stop asks, “More tea, Sarge?”
Earl Thompson, who had not been called Sarge in over 12 years, leaves 39P for a $4.75 check and heads out to command his 1992 Peterbuilt to the nearest motel for the night…
SSG Schwartz
…while 39P stays in the truck stop’s cash drawer. It’s not given out as change that night, and Sarah Tipton, the night manager, counts it out with 13 other $10 bills and stuffs it into the bank bag for the night deposit. She makes the deposit without incident, and it’s tallied the next morning by Julie Lawson, the teller at the Wells Fargo branch at which the truck stop has their account. Julie’s second customer of the day is Nells Bitterman, with whom she went to high school and on whom she’s always harbored a secret crush. Nells deposits his paycheck and gets back $150 in cash, and Julie hands him seven $20 bills and 39P. He turns to go, and then decides it’s now or never, and, besides, he’s flush with cash. So he asks her, "…
…“You single?” Actually, they both ask it simultaneously. After mutual shock, they smile at each other. Neils has just concluded a bitter divorce with a woman he now calls “the crazy”, and is looking for some friendly companionship. Julie is looking for a change after five years of the same-old same-old, and just this morning was looking at herself and wondering whether the championship sprinter she was in high school would ever run again.
“I’m going to Spain tomorrow morning. Want to come along?” Neil’s words penetrated the happy fog of Julie’s mind, and she heard herself respond, “Yes…”
“Here’s my card. Call me when you leave work and we can go to dinner.” And a few hours later, Julie does…
and she and Neil soon find themselves enjoying large desserts and vodka martinis as they prepare to pack up their belongings and enjoy sunny Spain together. Neil leaves 39P as a tip for the kind waitress, who has put up with tipsy euphoric giggling from Neil and Julie for over two hours.
Whether Neil and Julie make it onto their early flight to Spain the next morning is anyone’s guess, but their waitress, Angela, pockets 39P. After her shift, Angela goes home and goes to bed, but is woken up at 4 a.m. by her perpetually cashless brother, calling for the third time that week.
“Angie, baby,” he slurs, “I need juss a – juss a liddle cash to – I gotta see the dentist.”
“Fine, Doug” Angie mumbles in a sleepy haze. “I can only spare $20.”
“Thass fine, sis,” Doug mutters, wondering how he’s going to get the other $780 dollars he needs for his root canal.
The next morning, he stops by Angela’s apartment, collects 39P and two five-dollar bills, and thanks Angela, who just rolls her eyes and holds the door for him.
Doug heads down the apartment building stairs, smiles at the doorman, and walks to the corner, where he gets ready to cross the street, heading toward the First National Bank of Flummery. He’s in a bit of a hurry, though, and before the “walk” signal turns completely, he begins to walk across the street. His mind focused on exactly what he’s planning to do at the Bank of Flummery, Doug doesn’t notice…
…the damaged sewer-access cover directly in front of him in the crosswalk. As Doug steps on it, it flips up, and, in an action that would have been reminiscent of a Chuck Jones cartoon if it weren’t so painful, drops him out of sight. Doug releases the bills in surprise, and they fall onto the road. A moment later there is a faint splash as the cover settles neatly back into place, upside-down. Disbelieving motorists stare, trying to add up their memories of what they have just seen and compare it to the tranquil scene in front of them.
One thing’s for certain: there is money on the road…