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A Tale of Two Dollars

The Source

Once upon a time, as all good stories begin, there were two one-dollar bills. They’d shared the same billfold for several weeks and had become good friends. One was named Buck and the other was Cash. Cash was a bit bolder of the two and one day he said, “I’m going on an adventure! I want to travel the world! Come with me, Buck!” It was the Christmas season and millions of dollar bills were zipping around the world as people prepared for the holiday season. “Come with me!” said Cash. “What could be more exciting than crawling out of this old wallet and seeing how far I can go?” But his friend Buck was not sure that traveling far and wide was a good idea. “I like staying local. There’s nothing in the rest of the world that I need to see, and besides, that would mean leaving all my friends.” “Have it your way!” said Cash as he flew out of his owner’s pocket and was on his way to great adventure. “I want to see it all! Do it all!” he said, and that’s just what he did. He zipped himself down to the nearest mega-store where there were goods from all over the world. And as he flew around the store something quite wonderful caught his eye. It was a lovely pair of gloves with a tag saying “Made in Afpakistan.” Cash so loved the gloves that he plopped himself down on the checkout counter along with his beloved gloves and before he knew it he was being swept away to the store’s corporate headquarters in a faraway state. He was far away from home now but he made good use of his time as he helped the CEO of the big company pay his taxes to another state, build roads in another state, hire employees from many states, and he even helped buy the big businessman a new limousine! “Who would want to stay local when he could have this much fun!” said Cash. There was still enough left of him to help some people make purchases over the Internet and shop from catalogs. He was feeling very, very proud of himself and since it was Christmas time, Cash could move very, very fast. Meanwhile his old friend Buck stayed closer to home. The local grade school was having a fund drive to buy books and he gladly joined in. The high school’s yearbook staff had to sell ads in order to cover the cost of the books and Buck happily made his contribution. The road coming in to town was beginning to get bumpy and rough so Buck gave a part of himself as local taxes to help pay for a new road. His friend Cash may have been seeing a great deal of the world but Buck kept recirculating in his own area and that made people very, very happy. It seemed like the more Buck circulated around his town, the happier people became. Local stores were able to stay open, people stayed in town instead of driving long distances to shop, the property value of homes increased as the town became a more and more attractive place to live, the center of the town was revitalized since the big, big stores tend to build on the outskirts of a town, local businesses began to purchase things from other local businesses, local people could hire local people and the money they made stayed local. Many years later the two one-dollar bills happened to end up in the same purse. My, but they were surprised and my but they were happy to see each other! “Buck! My old friend Buck!” shouted Cash. “It’s been years since I’ve seen you! How have you been?” But before Buck could answer, Cash began telling his tale. “I went to Arkansas! I went to Los Angeles! And for many years I floated around China where I helped pay for hundreds of artificial Christmas trees! Oh, and maybe you’ve noticed, but I had a little reconstructive surgery done and now I’m officially e-currency. I don’t wrinkle any more!” Buck was awed by Cash’s tale, but he finally chimed in. “I guess my life has not been as exciting. I stayed local. But I got to play with the kids on the new swing set I helped purchase. When a family was put out of their house by a terrible fire a local merchant spent me to help pay for new shoes, and when people drive down the street of our town they really like the way I helped pay for filling the potholes. It seems like I never left our little town at all since I kept circulating around and around the area. It was sort of funny, Cash. It seemed like I got to see the same people over and over again.” Cash said, “And just think! There are parts of me all over the world today!” Buck smiled and said to his friend, “Yeah. There’s not much of us left, but to see where I’ve been I only have to look around the neighborhood.”