$2 Bill

[lynn jones]

true or not this is funny

$2 Bill

I am STILL laughing!! Many of today's youth are terribly challenged

without a computer to tell them what to do!! The story is funny, Lack

of education is not funny!!

On my way home from work, I stopped at Taco Bell for a quick bite to

eat. In my billfold are a $50 bill and a $2 bill. I figure that with a

$2 bill, I can get something to eat and not have to worry about anyone

getting irritated at me for trying to break a $50 bill.

I said: "Hi, I'd like one seven-layer burrito please, to go."

Server:"That'll be $1.04. Eat in?"

I said: "No, it's to go." At this point, I open my billfold and hand him the

$2 bill. He looks at it kind of funny.

Server: "Uh, hang on a sec, I'll be right back."He goes to talk to his

manager, who is still within my earshot. The following conversation

occurs between the two of them:

Server: "Hey, you ever see a $2 bill?"

Manager: "No. A what?"

Server: "A $2 bill. This guy just gave it to me."

Manager: "Ask for something else. There's no such thing as a $2 bill."

Server: "Yeah, thought so."

He comes back to me and says, "We don't take these. Do you have anything

else?"

Myself: "Just this fifty. You don't take $2 bills? Why?"

Server: "I don't know."

Myself: "See here where it says legal tender?"

Server: "Yeah."

Myself: "So, why won't you take it?"

Server: "Well, hang on a sec."

He goes back to his manager, who has been watching me like I'm a

shoplifter, and says to him, "He says I have to take it."

Manager: "Doesn't he have anything else?"

Server: "Yeah, a fifty. I'll get it and you can open the safe and get

change."

Manager: "I'm not opening the safe with him in here.

"Server: "What should I do?"

Manager: "Tell him to come back later when he has real money."

Server: "I can't tell him that! You tell him."

Manager: "Just tell him."

Server: "No way! This is weird. I'm going in back."

The manager approaches me and says, "I'm sorry, but we don't take big

bills this time of night."

Myself: "It's only seven o'clock! Well then, here's a two dollar bill."

Manager: "We don't take those, either."

Myself: "Why not?"

Manager: "I think you know why."

Myself: "No really ... tell me why."

Manager: "Please leave before I call mall security."

Myself: "Excuse me?"

Manager: "Please leave before I call mall security."

Myself: "What on earth for?"

Manager: "Please, sir."

Myself: "Uh, go ahead, call them."

Manager: "Would you please just leave?"

Myself: "No."

Manager: "Fine -- have it your way then."

Myself: "Hey, that's Burger King, isn't it?"

At this point, he backs away from me and calls mall security on the

phone around the corner. I have two people staring at me from the dining

area, and I begin laughing out loud, just for effect. A few minutes

later this 45-year-oldish guy comes in.

Guard: "Yeah, Mike, what's up?"

Manager (whispering): "This guy is trying to give me some (pause) funny

money."

Guard: "No kidding! What?"

Manager: "Get this ... a two dollar bill."

Guard (incredulous): "Why would a guy fake a two dollar bill?"

Manager: "I don't know. He's kinda weird. He says the only other thing

he has is a fifty."

Guard: "Oh, so the fifty's fake!"

Manager: "No, the two dollar bill is."

Guard: "Why would he fake a two dollar bill?"

Manager: "I don't know! Can you talk to him, and get him out of here?"

Guard: "Yeah."

Security Guard walks over to me and......

Guard: "Mike here tells me you have some fake bills you're trying to

use."

Myself: "Uh, no."

Guard: "Lemme see 'em."

Myself: "Why?"

Guard: "Do you want me to get the cops in here?"

At this point I am ready to say, "Sure, please!" but I want to eat, so I

say, "I'm just trying to buy a burrito and pay for it with this two

dollar bill."

I put the bill up near his face, and he flinches like I'm taking a swing

at him. He takes the bill, turns it over a few times in his hands, and

says, "Hey, Mike, what's wrong with this bill?"

Manager: "It's fake."

Guard: "It doesn't look fake to me."

Manager: "But it's a two dollar bill."

Guard: "Yeah ... ?"

Manager: "Well, there's no such thing, is there?"

The security guard and I both look at him like he's an idiot, and it

dawns on the guy that he has no clue.

So, it turns out that my burrito was free, and he threw in a small drink

and some of those cinnamon thingies, too.

Made me want to get a whole stack of two dollar bills just to see what

happens when I try to buy stuff. If I got the right group of people, I

could probably end up in jail. You get free food there, too!

[MikeFoley]

Lynn, that is great!

A Dairy Queen in Danville, KY actually took a bill with Clinton's picture on it and gave $197 change and a Blizzard.

At Nats last year, I gave the Hannibal McDonalds a real $100 one morning and shut the breakfast line down for 5 minutes.

[eerw]

Another story about trying to spend your $2 bills..

Here is a story from the Baltimore Sun..

A tale of customer service, justice and currency as funny as a $2 bill

Michael Olesker

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PUT YOURSELF in Mike Bolesta's place. On the morning of Feb. 20, he buys a new radio-CD player for his 17-year-old son Christopher's car. He pays the $114 installation charge with 57 crisp new $2 bills, which, when last observed, were still considered legitimate currency in the United States proper. The $2 bills are Bolesta's idea of payment, and his little comic protest, too.

For this, Bolesta, Baltimore County resident, innocent citizen, owner of Capital City Student Tours, finds himself under arrest.

Finds himself, in front of a store full of customers at the Best Buy on York Road in Lutherville, locked into handcuffs and leg irons.

Finds himself transported to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, where he's handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service is called into the case.

Have a nice day, Mike.

"Humiliating," the 57-year old Bolesta was saying now. "I am 6 feet 5 inches tall, and I felt like 8 inches high. To be handcuffed, to have all those people looking on, to be cuffed to a pole -- and to know you haven't done anything wrong. And me, with a brother, Joe, who spent 33 years on the city police force. It was humiliating."

What we have here, besides humiliation, is a sense of caution resulting in screw-ups all around.

"When I bought the stereo player," Bolesta explains, "the technician said it'd fit perfectly into my son's dashboard. But it didn't. So they called back and said they had another model that would fit perfectly, and it was cheaper. We got a $67 refund, which was fine. As long as it fit, that's all.

"So we go back and pay for it, and they tell us to go around front with our receipt and pick up the difference in the cost. I ask about installation charges. They said, 'No installation charge, because of the mix-up. Our mistake, no charge.' Swell.

"But then, the next day, I get a call at home. They're telling me, 'If you don't come in and pay the installation fee, we're calling the police.' Jeez, where did we go from them admitting a mistake to suddenly calling the police? So I say, 'Fine, I'll be in tomorrow.' But, overnight, I'm starting to steam a little. It's not the money -- it's the threat. So I thought, I'll count out a few $2 bills."

He has lots and lots of them.

With his Capital City Student Tours, he arranges class trips for school kids around the country traveling to large East Coast cities, including Baltimore. He's been doing this for the last 18 years. He makes all the arrangements: hotels, meals, entertainment. And it's part of his schtick that, when Bolesta hands out meal money to students, he does it in $2 bills, which he picks up from his regular bank, Sun Trust.

"The kids don't see that many $2 bills, so they think this is the greatest thing in the world," Bolesta says. "They don't want to spend 'em. They want to save 'em. I've been doing this since I started the company. So I'm thinking, 'I'll stage my little comic protest. I'll pay the $114 with $2 bills.'"

At Best Buy, they may have perceived the protest -- but did not sense the comic aspect of 57 $2 bills.

"I'm just here to pay the bill," Bolesta says he told a cashier. "She looked at the $2 bills and told me, 'I don't have to take these if I don't want to.' I said, 'If you don't, I'm leaving. I've tried to pay my bill twice. You don't want these bills, you can sue me.' So she took the money. Like she's doing me a favor."

He remembers the cashier marking each bill with a pen. Then other store personnel began to gather, a few of them asking, "Are these real?"

"Of course they are," Bolesta said. "They're legal tender."

A Best Buy manager refused comment last week. But, according to a Baltimore County police arrest report, suspicions were roused when an employee noticed some smearing of ink. So the cops were called in. One officer noticed the bills ran in sequential order.

"I told them, 'I'm a tour operator. I've got thousands of these bills. I get them from my bank. You got a problem, call the bank,'" Bolesta says. "I'm sitting there in a chair. The store's full of people watching this. All of a sudden, he's standing me up and handcuffing me behind my back, telling me, 'We have to do this until we get it straightened out.'

"Meanwhile, everybody's looking at me. I've lived here 18 years. I'm hoping my kids don't walk in and see this. And I'm saying, 'I can't believe you're doing this. I'm paying with legal American money.'"

Bolesta was then taken to the county police lockup in Cockeysville, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons while the Secret Service was called in.

"At this point," he says, "I'm a mass murderer."

Finally, Secret Service agent Leigh Turner arrived, examined the bills and said they were legitimate, adding, according to the police report, "Sometimes ink on money can smear."

This will be important news to all concerned.

For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

The other day, one of Bolesta's sons needed a few bucks. Bolesta pulled out his wallet and "whipped out a couple of $2 bills. But my son turned away. He said he doesn't want 'em any more."

He's seen where such money can lead.

[diehli]

I'd be suing the f@#$ing city.

[Scooter]

Screw the city, they don't have money. Go after Best Buy, you could get millions of $2 bills out of them.

[dajarrel]

I'm afraid I would be seeking to be large stockholder of Best Buy as the result of litigation for being STUPID.

Makes me want to go the bank this morning and get a stack of $2 bills.

dj

[dirtypool40]

A Dairy Queen in Danville, KY actually took a bill with Clinton's picture on it and gave $197 change and a Blizzard. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't believe you. Clinton's on the $3, and that only get's a blizzard and about fifty cents.

[carinab]

Try paying for something with those Susan B. Anthony dollar coins you get back from the postal machines when buying stamps. I've had the go around over those because cashier's think that they are only quarters.

My favorite is when a bill is $7.53 and you give the cashier $23.03. Some have actually told me they only need the twenty dollar bill. I know how to count back change and I don't want a stack of ones and pocket of small coins. They always look mystified until they enter the amount on the register and realize I will get back a ten, a five, and two quarters.

I sometimes worry about the future for my daughter....But then I realize she will be part of the DNRC with induhviduals for servants....

[SiG Lady]

Gah, sign of the times!! $2 bills have been with us a helluva long time! Idiots!

[shred]

Check out Wozniak's (founder of Apple, thus free-spirit with lots of cash) $2 story:

http://www.woz.org/letters/general/78.html

[EricW]

I used to get rolls of Susan B's from the bank for entertainment value. Never in my wildest dreams did I think someone would call the fuzz.

[XRe]

I were put in the same position as some of these folks, I might end up in jail for the abusive language that would leave my mouth, and my total failure to cooperate....

[Merlin Orr]

I were put in the same position as some of these folks, I might end up in jail for the abusive language that would leave my mouth, and my total failure to cooperate....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And then some. WTF? Its kinda sad and pathetic....

[MikeFoley]

A Dairy Queen in Danville, KY actually took a bill with Clinton's picture on it and gave $197 change and a Blizzard. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't believe you. Clinton's on the $3, and that only get's a blizzard and about fifty cents.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here's the link to the story, it wasn't Clinton after all, but the rest of my recant was accurate.

http://ron4president.com/2001_01.html

[bjet]

true or not this is funny

$2 Bill

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I first heard this in '98 but snopes has it going back to '93.

http://www.snopes.com/business/money/tacobell.asp