We had a bit of excitement in the office a few days ago after school. The principal came in from bus duty with a counterfeit one dollar bill that a student said he found on the ground outside the school. It had been wadded up and smoothed out. The color was pretty good, but the front bottom border was missing. Quite a few staff members tend to come through the office at the end of the day, and everyone wanted to inspect it. Fear seized my heart as I wondered if I had taken any phony bills that day from students paying for lunches. A large percentage of cash that I take in is wadded and crumpled! It would probably be very easy to fool me! I got the day's money out, and much of it was ones. One self-proclaimed expert said that an easy way to tell counterfeit from genuine was that counterfeit would rip easily, but it was difficult to tear genuine. So I started making tiny tears in the bills. Some would not tear at all, but many of the ones and some fives and twenties were very easy to tear. People gathered around my desk, holding bills up to the light and chattering excitedly. "Have you called the police yet?"
Fortunately, I held off on making a call until sanity was restored. It soon became apparent that well-used bills tear easily. Nice new crisp bills do not. The phony bill is still lying on my desk to remind me to be careful. I'll show it to the school resource officer next time he stops by. Thank God I did not allow myself to be pressured into making a phone call to the police telling them I had 75 percent of the day's take in counterfeit money! Will shook his head in amazed disbelief when he heard about it. I think he was very impressed with my belated good judgment!
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