This post got me to thinking… Man, just how dirty can money be!..
I mean, just where might it have been before… :eek:
It’s dirty enough to have a 7/4 time signature. That’s about as dirty as you can get.
Let’s see – paper money gets shoved into the g-strings (front and back) of people (male and female) who strip for that money. In case you’ve never been to a titty bar* or around a man with sweaty balls – let’s just say that, in and of itself, is enough reason to never want to touch paper money without disinfecting it and wearing latex gloves! Oh, yeah, and then there are the bills that are rolled up for use of recreational powders. Now, you have boogers along with the poop, urine, and other sundry nether bodily fluids. But wait! Have you ever dropped something on the floor? Yeah, you might leave a penny on the bathroom floor, but what if you dropped a $100 bill? Are you really wealthy enough to just leave it? What if you dropped it in the toilet? Let’s face it, you’d fish it out, rinse it off in the sink and shove it in with the rest of your folding money. Money is dirty. Makes me wonder how some germaphobes ever manage to survive – I mean, I let the 5-second rule slide to 10 seconds if it’s something really yummy (like beef jerky) but even *I *am loathe to touch paper money!
*yes, I know, not all women in strip clubs are nasty, but the term titty bar pretty much defines the kind of place to which I am referring. YMMV
I think I’ll be using my debit card even more now. Thanks.
Does paper money get cleaned somehow? Before they use it to restock ATMs maybe?
At one point I had a criminology class in which we were talking about the widespread use of cocaine. It’s common to roll up bills to snort the powder with, and of course in doing so those bills get some cocaine residue on them. Well, that money is then sometimes run through ATMs, which leaves that residue on the rollers in the machine. According to my professor, every single bit of paper money in the USA that’s been in circulation for more than a few days has, at some point, been run through a machine where the rollers in said machine have picked up that cocaine reside. The end result is that the vast, vast, vast majority of our paper money has at least some trace of powder on it. No cite, but interesting to think about.
I used to know a stripper who could actually pick up folding money with her hoo-ha. So it’s not just proximity to the nethers you gotta worry about.
Soul
I’ve heard something similar, and of course can’t think of where.
Snopes says it is true:
http://www.snopes.com/business/money/cocaine.asp
No way - how do you think it’s cleaned? I fill an ATM daily, and all I do is try to use the least-wrinkled bills possible.
Joe
Since the paper money is printed on is a linen paper, it can actually be put through the delicate cycle wash, but if you have that much, just send it to me, I don’t mind the dirt *that *much.
Excellent
There’s a fairly recent thread mentioning this, but I can’t find it, search is crapping out on me.
I mention in that thread how dirty I’ve found money to be, in general. My hands have never gotten so dirty doing any job as they have when I’ve been a cashier. They’d turn dark-ish gray by the end of the lunch rush where I worked.
Money is gross. Which is why I’ll never be picking any of it up with my nethers.
When I worked as a cashier in a drug store, lots of my co-workers would keep a little snack hidden next to their registers to nibble on between transactions. Touch money, touch greasy potato chips, lick fingers, touch money… It grossed me out no end.
At that same drug store, I once handled a transaction with a homeless man who counted out his money with hands covered in filth and drying blood.
Kids carry folding money in their socks. I’ve known grown women who kept bills in their bras. Even if this didn’t happen, people use their unwashed hands to handle slightly-absorbent paper.
I try to focus on the idea that paper money does not stay in circulation very long, or I’d go insane. As it is, I just wash my hands frequently, and wash as soon as I get home from shopping trips.
The latest study - cocaine ahoy! News, Politics, Sports, Mail & Latest Headlines - AOL.com
News story a few minutes ago on drugs on paper money: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32450588/ns/business-personal_finance/
Forget about money. How dirty is her hoo-ha?
Of course not. That’s money-laundering, and that’s illegal 
But more seriously - I think since paper money changes hands so much, it absorbs skin oils and attracts dust and grime on the basis of that, even absent any other really-gross stuff.
When I worked as a cashier, I had to wash my hands often because they just felt VILE from handling the bills. Blech.
Ah. Money laundering.
I tried searching for how many times the average paper bill is used before it’s retired an didn’t find it. There’s some fun facts about “unfit notes” by the Federal Reserve and an advertisement for a machinethat sorts the fit from the unfit notes. It includes “soil” as one of the reasons a note can be determined unfit.