Trask Avenue

Many of you think us paper moneyers lead glamorous lives filled with adventure and intrigue, lives that take us to strange and exotic places, lives that brighten people’s days and accelerate their nights. Many of you assume we are surrounded by joy since you imagine everyone who comes into contact with us does so under the happiest of circumstances. I am here to tell you if that is what you imagine then your imagination is full of shit. The reality is we witness far more suffering, pain and bad behavior.

Have you ever been torn then taped, torn then taped, torn then taped, only to be torn again?
Have you ever spent a week balled up in the unwashed pants of a sanitation worker?

Well, have you?

Yet according to you we are supposed to shake off these skin-crawling experiences like they never happened. We should, pardon the pun, buck up. In case you have forgotten we are made of linen and fiber, not Teflon.

Don’t roll your eyes. Oh man, you want lecture me. I know you do. “Poor Alex, his life is so hard. He has no responsibilities and travels all over the world. There are no kids to clothe, no work pressures, no hovering axe ready to destroy his world. Maybe if he had to go through what I go through just to get his sort into my life, maybe then he would realize what real suffering is, what true pain is, what it feels like to have something you work so hard for disappear as fast as you get it. Maybe if he understood that he would realize how good he has it.”

Boo hoo. I don’t want to get into a pissing contest, but if you had been exposed to a fraction of the crap I experience all the time your tune would change toot-sweet.

Have you ever been folded into origami by a sadistic 8 year old?
Have you ever been pinned to a restaurant wall for the rest of your life?
Have you ever been slapped onto a disgusting bar into the tacky residue of spilled beer and bourbon?

Well, have you?

Yes yes, there are those moments – rare as they may be – when we witness glimpses of grace, those tiny gestures which could make it all worthwhile. Using us to buy a book for a poor kid or purchase a sandwich for a hungry person, these types of things almost atone for all the scummy scum. Yes, when your behavior exceeds our expectations it is such a pleasant surprise, almost enough to make us forget the other 98% of our reality. We start feeling something close to a noble purpose, a little peek of sunlight on the horizon.

But then some nimrod steps in, does something stupid or reprehensible, and the miserable cycle begins again.

Have to ever been used to blackmail an innocent person?
Have you ever been manhandled by a halitosis-infested degenerate only to end up in the sticky fingers of a hooker?
Have you ever been the reason people murder each other?

I didn’t think so.