Ingies n' Things

Like the picture? It has nothing to do with the post but a post without a picture is terribly dull. It also would probably be better if I would learn to use editing software. It's on the list.

My mother used to iron her money. 

It’s true. I’m serious. 

I learned this interesting fact about my compulsively organized bookkeeper mother a few months ago. This is the same woman whose greatest joy in life is polishing the copper bottoms of her Revere® Ware pans. 

When my mother first mentioned this fact in passing during casual conversation – in what context I cannot even recall – I roared – tears rolled down my eyes. Who irons their money?!? 

Visions of  my brother and me playing contentedly at my mother’s feet while she toiled away at the ironing board tidying up the day’s take ran through my head . . . babysitter leaves . . . Mom whips out the ironing board. 

Now, lest I make my very generous mother sound like either a close relative of dear old Ebenezer or a candidate for pharmaceutical intervention her explanation goes something like this: 

Crumpled money is very difficult to stack. 

We lived in the middle (smack dab in the middle) of nowhere . . . a long way from somewhere and even further from anywhere. 

My parents owned and operated a variety of businesses in this minute town in the middle of nowhere. Evidently, once paper and coin money found its way to this exotic locale it never got to leave. The bills were simply passed around and around and around and got really, really used going from hand to hand to hand to hand before finding their way to a bank.  

It was wadded up in pockets . . .   

stuffed in mukluks . . .   

used for insulation at 45 below during the cold and dark of winter . . .  

occasionally used to buy groceries and pay utility bills . . .  

My mother swears she spent hours taping together torn pieces of bills trying to make serial numbers match so she could mail (yes that would be USPS) giant wads of cash to town for deposit once she declared them unfit for circulation. (This was prior to the glorious invention of the debit card – arch-enemy of Dave Ramsey.) 

According to my mother 25 crumpled up ones can make a stack eighteen inches high. Not very tidy for sending to First National. Doesn’t work for my compulsively organized mother at all. 

So she ironed them. 

Apparently there is just enough cotton rag in Uncle Sam’s paper blend to make them iron up quite nicely. 

Who knew? 

Giggling, 
D 

Epilogue:
Evidently Snoop Dog knows all about this. Posters of him ironing money are available on-line. Do you supposed he is compulsively tidy, too? I’m thinking his motive may lie elsewhere.