Hey hey hey, and welcome to another episode of Money Memos! I’ll be your host today, guiding you through a world of interesting messages scratched onto dollar bills. It’s also my first post of the year, and also my first in about four months! Man, I was lazy over winter break. But new year, new me. I’ll try to keep you guys flooded with interesting content, how does that sound? And as a special reward, I have two bills for the bill of the day. You’re welcome.
First off, we have this message which can take on a couple of different meanings.
Looks sweet and all, right? Sure, it could be that our writer wanted each person who received this bill to have a great day and think to themselves: “yeah, that’s right! Someone loves me! I’m not destined to be lonely like I thought!” It might be just the right kind of positive message that the receiver needed to hear.
Or, the person whose hands this bill fell into could be a cynical jerk such as myself. When I saw it, I immediately thought: Ouch. “Someone loves you, sarcastic smiley face.” My (loose) interpretation: “You’re a friendless loser, but don’t worry- I’m sure that there’s someone out there who thinks you’re alright. I guess.” Maybe I’ve seen Mean Girls one too many times. Maybe I’m just a tool since that’s what I’d mean if I sent that to someone. Of course, I was also reminded of this scene between Anna and Hans from Disney’s Frozen:
Zzzinggg! What a burn. I’d like to submit to the jury my case that it was indeed Hans who wrote this Money Memo. Evidence: An evil putdown compounded by a smirk. Court adjourned.
On a more positive note, the other bill I have today is much less open to interpretation. It’s far less likely to have been written by a Disney villain and more likely to have been written by a time-traveling Californian dudebro from the 90’s.
Tubular, bro! I actually like this one, and not because it’s steeped in jargon that was long gone from popular parlance a decade before the bill was even printed. It’s the fact that this was written on a one dollar bill. I know this dollar might have bought four gallons of gas when the writer was a kid, or a twin pack of Duncan yo-yos to do tricks with while skateboarding at the local park, but dang. How many awesome things can you buy with a dollar in 2016? Actually I know, I Googled it. Spoiler, the answer is none. Proof:
The first article I clicked on had a picture of four 12 ounce cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon as the article header image, which I deemed to be accurate considering it was a list of things you could get for $1. However, I hoped that there were things of actual value to be purchased as well, so as not to invalidate the Money Memoer’s plea that I buy something RAD.
Considering the website that the article was written for, I wasn’t expecting much but I did expect something useful. I mean, we’re still talking the purchasing power of a single single, but c’mon. Surely it’s not totally worthless. Well Ross, you thought wrong. Apparently Business Insider’s opinion of what I should spend my dollar on includes but is not limited to: Mardi Gras beads from the dollar store (big surprise), a shampoo bottle from the dollar store (I’m seeing a pattern already), making it “rain” just a drop at your local strip club (yes, that was one of the suggestions), and buying a crappy lawn decoration for my lawn… from the dollar store. I’m pretty sure the article writer was on the point of getting fired if he didn’t publish something, anything to the website because that was the most atrociously conceptualized, worded, and edited thing I’ve ever seen, and I read a lot of Buzzfeed stories. Nevertheless, it does illustrate my point. A dollar is, effectively, worthless.
Thanks, my Cali friend! Next time try writing that on a twenty dollar bill and give it to me so I can at least pay for the gasoline to even get to the dollar store to buy some garbage. That dollar wouldn’t even pay for a garbage collector to come to my house and take away all the trash that I bought from the dollar store. Think before you make a Money Memo, hombre. Or don’t, because then I wouldn’t have any material to make fun of. Cheers!
Cineri Gloria Sera Venit 