Thursday, January 31, 2008

My Career in Money Laundering

The other day, my daughter said she was finally ready to buy a new camera. The only problem is that she'd need to tap into her "sticky money" stash.

What, you may ask, is "sticky money?" Well...


Shortly before Christmas, my brother was visiting for dinner and I made the mistake of mentioning to Heather and Beth that they would have money after Christmas because Uncle Brian and Grandpa always give them each a hundred dollar bill.


I learned a lesson that day. Don't ever presume to tell Uncle Brian what he is giving to the girls. Because he won't. He promised then and there that under absolutely no terms would he give them a hundred dollar bill.

Flash forward to Christmas morning.


After opening everything else, Uncle Brian hands each girl a box. Hmmm. The box is way too big for a hundred dollar bill. I guess he told the truth.


After unwrapping the gift wrap, there was a layer of newsprint totally covered with clear packing tape.

Ten minutes later, they finally get to the next layer...another layer of newsprint covered with packing tape.

And another layer of newsprint and tape.

And yet another layer of newsprint and tape. Sheesh.




Finally, we see my brother's devious mind in action. The next layer is a bunch of single dollar bills adhesive sprayed to the outside of the box.



...And to the INSIDE of the box, too. The girls had to be extremely careful removing those dollars so they wouldn't rip.

The 99 dollar bills that were glued to the box was just wrapping, of course. Inside the box, it is stuffed to the brim with balled up newspaper, but we could hear something clattering at the bottom, so the girls carefully went through every piece of paper until they finally found their gift at the bottom...four quarters. See, he didn't give them a hundred dollar bill, he simply gave them a dollar. And it only took 30 minutes to open the gift.

Do you realize how sticky those dollars were? Sticky enough that we tried (unsuccessfully, I might add) to wash them.



Store clerks really don't like sticky money, we've discovered.

4 comments:

  1. Your brother must be a genius! Probably gets his devious mind from his mother.

    ReplyDelete
  2. He was almost even more devious. His original plan was to photocopy (in color) some actual dollar bills front and back so the girls would have to figure out which ones were real or not. And also, he told the girls they needed to be careful because there MIGHT be a dollar or two tucked in some of the balled up newsprint. Beth painstakingly went through every piece. He's evil, I tell ya!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I still had a blast opening it... I love my uncle.

    ReplyDelete