It's Not Easy

It’s Not Easy….

I’m money. I’m U.S. currency. I’m green and, like the song tells us, “It’s not easy being green.” It’s particularly true nowadays. Funny that I’ve never felt this way before, even during periods of heavy circulation, but the way I’m being handled today makes me want to be laundered. I really mean, I feel like I need a bath. Let me explain:

In other, more genteel times, I was handled with restraint. Efforts to debase my verdant or metallic lure were much more haphazard; not nearly so public. Oh, sure, there are always exceptions but things have changed dramatically. Just look at politics, for starters, to see how I have been abused.

One of our leading candidates for President just loaned herself $5,000,000 of my kindred as a stopgap measure. That same candidate spent thirty million getting re-elected as a U.S. Senator in New York, a so-called “safe state”. She and others of her inclination have thrown me at political hacks, media outlets, printers, airline carriers and God knows who else in their quest for a hunk of history. I could have been spent instead on healthcare, the elderly, the handicapped or maybe the at-risk youth that now terrify our cities, but “NO!” We proud dollars, frankly, are sick of it and we’re not gonna take it anymore! For those of you who demand a politically balanced picture, how about that Romney guy suspending his campaign after throwing $35,000,000 in personal green at his opponents. I never did like a guy who looked like he ironed his jeans! But, hey, I’m not a crybaby, a new kid or a tree hugger in this, folks. I’ve been used to procure sex from addicted prostitutes. I’m even used to buy weapons of mass destruction…reportedly. My role has not always been honorable in the scheme of human frailty but there comes a time when enough is enough. Another example? How about sports!

Over one billion of us greenbacks were spent last year on Major League Baseball salaries. One player took home over $27,000,000 of it and then demanded a renegotiated contract. Result? (Only in the Big Apple.) He got it! Meanwhile, the cost of a family attending a Major League Baseball game has increased dramatically. We’re all familiar now with $10.00 parking spots, $80.00 tickets, and $5.00 hot dogs. A friend of ours has suggested a new organization called “BS, FU”. It stands for Baseball Strike, Fans United. The idea is that less of me would be spent on such foolishness if the fans would just join the organization and say “No” to attending games until salaries, and therefore hot dogs and other costs, were reduced by 25%. But it seems that the public appetite for sports has a blinding effect to outrage over the misuse of money. Another palpable example of my embarrassment?

Uncle Sam has spent 4.1 trillion dollars on atomic weapons to date. That represents one quarter of all defense spending and one trillion more than all of the costs of World War 2. How many has the country used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Fortunately, none. How many has the country lost? Oh, about 14, according to best estimates. One hydrogen bomb still sits in the water just off the coast of Georgia; a collision of airplanes in 1958 left the folks at Tynbee Island with that little tourist-frightening surprise. The government claims it is unarmed. The pilot of the plane carrying the bomb says otherwise. And so it remains a 7,000 pound, underwater horror…..all at considerable public expense. Are you beginning to understand my sense of disgust at how I, the formerly revered dollar, am being treated? Damn that payroll tax! I still think it all began there.

More recently, I’ve been hoping to find some secret identity. “Cash, greenbacks, coin of the realm, moolah, legal tender, dollars and capital” just won’t cut it. There’s no way for me to hide now except to counterfeit my identity in the interest of my rapidly declining sanity. I can’t remember feeling this way since early settlers used to say, “It’s not worth a Continental”, referring to my dubious value in my infancy. Maybe these final facts will spur you to help me with my search:

l. The Defense Department lost 25 billion dollars in “un-reconciled spending” in 2003. To put that in balance, the State of Delaware’s annual budget is roughly 3 billion

2. There are over 2l.8 billion dollars in student loans now in default. Most of those loans were made to middle income families. Many are likely in foreclosure also, thanks to the banks, who used to handle me with care.

3. Americans owe $966 billion in credit card debt, most of it on cards that permit the issuer to increase the interest rate at any time for any reason. Would they owe that much if they’d been using me? You know the answer.

I long for the days when a million of me meant something. Those who “bring home the bacon” nowadays call that amount “bacon bits.” You cannot escape the phenomenon. Go to a Broadway Show? I think not. Fly first class? Yeah, right! Family of five for dinner and entertainment? “Please just follow me, sir…..to the poor house!”

My close cousin, the peso has no quandary like mine but then, there’s no payroll tax to speak of in his haven either….yet. There are a few rich men, waiting in the wings, who will probably change it all. From my own jaundiced, but still green, point of view, I really hope not.

Story ID:	3526
Written by:	jim rambo (bio, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Period Piece
Location:	Anytown USA
Year:	2008
Person:	A Saddened Dollar