A Familiar Object

So much depends on the faded green American Dollar. In all denominations, like dry leaves or a shady swimming pool, the bills are a pale static green. This government issued document, appointed to settle all public and private accounts, permeates all corners of life. Houses, shoes, dinners and vacations are all testaments to its value. Its power is unarguable. You can only have the things you have in exchange for this green sheet of paper, adorned with the face of a man you have never met. As time passes, these faces on the Dollar are growing. Simultaneously, everything else is in America growing: traffic, technology, immigration. The dollar has to keep up – it is currency, after all. I do wonder sometimes, would red be a more suitable color? Right now its cousin, the Euro, wears a spectrum of hues (and genders). The Dollar’s nieces and nephews, credit and debit cards, have an exhaustive wardrobe. Sometimes, they even go naked, just a series of digits passing through the web. Like a teenager streaking through a late night pool-party. “In God We Trust,” the Dollar declares. “Not Valid Unless Signed,” the credit card retorts. How long before the plastics decide that old Dollar should retire? Supporters of the Dollar argue that it can still do things the plastics can’t; like change possession quietly and anonymously. The plastics don’t have the benefit of crumpling in a pocket and going unnoticed, abandoned until turning up on laundry day as a pleasant surprise.