Sticky Money

project 365 #336: dog in river snarl
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

My cold has gotten worse again and this has gotten horribly old. I am attempting, with limited success, to ignore it. In the interests of this ignorance, I stopped by the Westville last night to have a couple of drinks with my friend S since she is leaving for Australia today (Yowza! Good luck S! It's all very exciting!) and in the interests of my cold I decided to forgo the PBR and have, instead, a hot toddy. The bar was packed and I was standing by someone's temporarily abandoned stool to order my toddy, which came in short order: a coffee mug full to the brim of hot water, whiskey, a spoon and a large lemon slice. The giant jug of honey came next so that I could add my own. Then I got my change back and at the same time the person whose barstool I was usurping also returned and glowered at me a bit.

I am a polite soul so I hastened to take my toddy and honey and spoon and money and purse and coat and hat and scarf and whatever the fuck else I was carrying since I never seem to have my hands free no matter what down the bar or to another table altogether. Somehow or other, because I am me, during the course of all this motion I managed to get honey on pretty much everything. And everywhere. And by everything and everywhere, yes, I mean my hair and my scarf and the bar and the handle of my spoon and, worst of all, my money. My $4 change suddenly got coated with honey and even as I stuffed the sticky bills into my wallet, thereby smearing my wallet with honey and stuffed my honeyed wallet into my purse, with predictable results, I thought, oh god, I'm never going to be able to spend that $4, am I? And then S came in and laughed at my honey smeared helpless self and I decided just to leave my wallet sticky and hope that ant eaters or magic bees or something would take care of it overnight.

This morning at the post office, I fortunately got one of my favorite clerks, who recites all your options and questions in a fast monotone like this "anything-in-this-package-hazardous-inflammable-explosive-chemical-illegal , do-you-want-insurance-confirmation-registration-extra-postage-fuzzy wuzzy?" And you say, "What?" and he says, with a sly smile, "Fuzzy wuzzy?" while pointing to one of those stuffed toys the post office sells since they stopped being, you know, a federal agency and became a gifte shoppe. This is the same clerk who invited me to join him and his buddies for poker one time last summer and I love him to death since he doesn't take the post office too seriously, thank the gods. So I handed him my sticky money, without saying a thing. He started trying to count it and then looked at me sort of horrified. "Um, " I said, "It's just honey. Don't ask." and then he cracked up and I cracked up and I left and so, if you get sticky money at the Asheville Post Office as your change, that would be why.