“Good afternoon, Ellen! Glad you could make it here finally.”
“Don’t be so smug,” she snapped. “If I had a dime for every time YOU have come in late I’d own this hospital by now.”
Dr. Carstairs and his toadies ignored this sally, and, with Ellen, went to go do doctor stuff. It was a quiet day and they all caught up on paperwork. Ellen, who had a meeting with a representative from the administrator’s office, plodded down the corridor to the cafeteria where she was to met Edmund Salbert, an assistant administrator. She paid for her coffee and an apple with 77R and sat down at a table, just as Salbert appeared from the hallway.
He was unlike the others in the administrator’s office; he never put on airs and refused to “micromanage” the doctors in his domain the way Steinbrenner manages the Yankees (or used to, anyway). He approached Dr. Hess and said:
And we have a winner for the most disgusting food combo ever!
And now on with the story.
“Ellen, may I call you Ellen, Dr. Hess? I have to confess, I find you sexy, attractive and disgusting all at the same time.” Dr. Hess was flattered but nontheless taken aback because she knew Edmund’s secret fantasy of being covered in salsa and crumbled Ritz crackers and used as a communal party dip which she found disgusting as she could not stand Ritz crackers. Dejected, Edmund bought his usual yogurt and Dr. Pepper lunch paying with a fifty dollar bill and receiving 77R as part of his change. After work, he went out to his favorite…
…bar, where he threw up, after just one beer. The bartender, who was as close to a teetotaler as a man could reasonably be, happened to need some $20 bills so he took several out of the till, replacing them with tens and fives from his own wallet. The next day, the bartender, named Mike Fafoofnik, went to confessional at St. Aloysius Church in a nearby town, where he spoke to Father Isaac Abramowitz through the screen:
“…I have sinned. I did indeed look upon the Mac Pro with lust in my heart, even though I already have a similar machine and to buy the new one would wreck my finances.” He did not mention his feelings for the improbably-curvaceous Zaran Sokalski who had started frequenting the bar, because he was starting to suspect the church of maintaining files of information against just about everyone in town, and that would be a very useful tidbit indeed for blackmail.
“Oy, again with the computer?” Father Isaac said, rolling his eyes behind the confessional screen. “Mike, there are people in this world of ours killing each other, raping, pillaging, stealing, taking the Lord’s name in vain. I understand you’re feeling some guilt about the Mac Pro, but…” The Israeli-born priest sighed. “I suppose if you bought it and didn’t really need it, it could be a venial sin. You could’ve donated the money to this church, after all, for its good works. But if your only ‘sin’ is lusting after an inaminate hunk of plastic and wire, my son, no matter how tempting, we really don’t need to be having this conversation.”
Fafoofnik thought about this, and then, throwing caution (and paranoia) to the winds, said, “Well, Father, there is this woman, Zaran…”
Father Isaac perked up as Fafoofnik talked.
“who I offered a twenty dollar bill to for a peek at her feet in eight inch stilletto heels. She took the money (77R btw) and promised me I could come over to her place to look in an hour but she gave me an address that was a Dunkin’ Donut shop instead. I was so enraged, I burned down the donut shop.” Father Abramowitz thought to himself, “At last an interesting confession! I am so tired of of all these lust in my hearts and took a cookie while mom wasn’t looking confessions I’ve been getting today. Oy! Get a life people!” He then said to Fafoofnik…
“…My son, you have committed acts of rage and jealousy. Your unbridled desire and its thwarting led to the destruction of innocent property and the destruction of the donut shop owner’s way of life. You will be required to stay in the town jail for three days while your sentence is being deci–just a minute.” There was a rustle of paper. “I seem to have gotten some of the civil code mixed up in here. My apologies. As I was saying, you have committed a grave sin…”
…The priest continued. By the time he was finished Fafoofnik was so contrite he promtptly left the church and hastened to the local police station to turn himself in.
“That’s an interesting story, Fafoofnik,” said the desk sergeant, “But we haven’t concluded the investigation of the blaze. That donut shop owner has lost two other shops–under suspicious circumstances. But it you insist, fill out and sign this confession form.”
The arson squad arrived soon afterward and said they ascribed the fire to an electrical short–with photos to prove it. Mike was released and went back to his bar, muttering to himself.
Meanwhile, Zaran, the improbably curvaceous woman with the spike heels, was now in possession of 77R. She happened to meet a married couple she knew, Joe and Jane Bradley. Mrs. Bradley was as preposterously cantilevered as Zaran, but that was not the reason they kept company. They went into a small Mexican restaurant for lunch, and Zaran said to the Bradleys:
“Some jerk gave me a twenty to let him see me in seven inch stilleto heels but I stiffed him and gave him the address to that Dunkin’ Donuts shop that burned down, so lunch is on me!” Zaran and the Bradleys feasted mightily upon chcken quesadillas washed down with frozen margaritas. Zaran staggered up to the cashier, she’d had a few too many, as usual, to pay for lunch and used 77R as part of her payment. Panzar, who hated his parents for naming him that, stuffed the bills into the till. Later, he went to the bank with the day’s deposit including 77R. It stayed at the bank until…
…it was given in the cashing of a check to: none other than George Sharp again! He examined the bill, and noted how worn it was, reckoning correctliy that it had passed through quite a few hands since HE had it last. He noted the wheresgeorge stamp and muttered, “I bet Artie Brown had this bill–he’s the wheresgeorge maven around here!” So George went to the wheresgeorge website on his own computer; sure enough, he recognized Artie Brown’s entry. He me Artie after school–George was in college and had a free afternoon; he went out to the high school’s football field and, seeing Artie from the stands, called out to him (Artie, a senior, was doing deep knee bends and other calisthenics). George said to him:
“Nice ass… errr… I mean, you know that twenty dollar bill with the where’sgeorge sticker on it? Can you believe I got it again!” Artie replied, “your’re ass aint’ lookin’ too bad either… errr… I mean, that’s cool about the twenty!” What ya gonna do with it?". “Probably spend it on some weed”, replied George. So George and Artie went to the local dealer Morven McSlacker and bought a bag of weed. Morven took 77R and went…
to the movies.
Standing in line at the multiplex, he mulled over the 20 films he could choose from. So many movies. Morveen’s THC-clouded mind was unable to commit to a choice.
“What movie, sir?” the ticket seller asked behind the glass window.
Morveen stood silently for what likely seemed to be an eternity for the people behind him. While in his personal mental fog, Morveen could somewhat hear voices saying things like “Come on!” and “Pick a fucking movie!”
“SIR?” the ticker said with an irritated tone. “What move will you be seeing?”
Finally roused to attention, Morveen took the $20 bill–77R–out of his wallet and handed it to the ticket clerk.
“Um,” he mumbled. "One ticket for…
Uh…Toy Story 2!"
The ticket seller and a bunch of kids in the line laughed.
He staggered in, presented his ticket to the tearer at the door, and went in to watch the movie. He was almost catatonic all the way through.
The ticket seller included the old twenty with the total receipts at the end of the shift, and handed the cash to the head cashier, “Nurn” Krelman.
Krelman, himself a wheresgeorge aficionado, exchanged 77R for some of his own cash and took it home with him. After noting the worn bill on the website, and seeing George’s and Artie’s entries, Nurn…
…contemplated framing 77R, but decided it was best to get it moving again, somewhere far away. So he sent it in a letter to “Tubby” Guzman, his brother’s girlfriend’s sister’s best friend’s babysitter in Alaska.
The letter containing 77R arrived in Anchorage a few days later…
…and “Tubby” too was a wheresgeorge person. He keyed in the serial number and got the same info George and the others had put on the bill. The parents of the kids “Tubby” looked after both worked at the main post office in Anchorage, and “Tubby” had exchanged the bill, 77R, with the father, Floyd Haden, when getting paid. Haden, as a conscientious postal employee…
issued him a receipt, but truth be told was not overly impressed by the time some people wasted on wheresgeorge.com. On his own, without consulting his surly wife Lulubelle, he decided to send 77R as a Sweet Sixteen birthday present to their niece Juliet Reese, who lived in Key West, Fla. It pleased Haden that the bill had already traveled so widely, and he suspected its gallivanting was not yet done. He took a mildly ribald birthday card containing 77R into work and personally hand-stamped it before dropping it into the bin with all the other mail bound from Anchorage for the Lower 48, sending it on its way to the distant other corner of this great republic.
Three days later…
>>hijack<<
never mind
the card arrived in Juliet’s mailbox. “Oh look”, she thought to herself, " a card from Aunt Lulubelle and Uncle Floyd." I’m sure there’s no money in it, that Uncle of mine is such a tightwad!" Imagine her surprise when she opened the slightly ribald card and saw 77R! Juliet, whose sweet sixteen birthday party was a mere two days away, spent 77R at the mall on some glitter eyeshadow that she knew would go perfectly with her new dress for the party. The clerk took 77R and gave Juliet her change. Herman Nosebooger, the clerk, was known for occasionally pilfering from the cash register, and being a big wheresgeorge fan, sneakily looked around and seeing that the store manager wasn’t looking, took 77R and…
…tried to sneak out of the store with it.
“What do you have in your hand, young man?!”
It was Forsaken Warborn, the oldest employee in the store and a real busybody. She was 86 years old but had a mind as sharp as a sword.
“Got a $20 bill out of the till, eh, Nosebooger? Well, give it to me or I’ll tell Mr. Steinmetz!”
Herman complied. Ms. Warborn was the store snitch and could cause Herman real trouble.
On her break, Forsaken bought a bag of Horehound drops for about $5.50. The cashier at that counter, Phil Catesby, was a wheresgeorge maven himself but more honest than Herman. He put two tens from his own wallet in the till in place of 77R, which he checked out on the website himself but intended to keep for a while, so he put it in an envelope in his sock drawer. However…
Phil’s wife Cloreene needed cash for her biweekly bikini wax, so she snuck 77R and three ten’s out of the envelope while Phil was playing WoW. The next day Cloreene went to the Curl Up And Dye Beauty Salon for her bikini wax and paid for it with 77R and two of the ten’s. The other ten was for a boilermaker and a three pickled eggs at the bar next door. Mayreen Foxtrotter, owner of the Curl Up and Dye, took 77R out of the register to go buy two cans of sardines, a wedge of hoop cheese and some saltine crackers for her lunch. She gave the cashier at the grocery store 77R for her purchases, receiving $11.79 in change. 77R, once again confined to a cash register, remained there until…