Mrs Guy's Homework

Today we had a team offsite of the educational wing of the forklift company. We rapped, we presented, we asked questions, we drew pictures, we admired each other's work. Winding up our day was an assignment to go out in the world early and report back about what we did. Usually Mr Guy is the executive producer of The Observatory, but today Fearless Leader is.

I left the factory and my adventure was this: I rushed across town to the taco vendor to buy yen. But I missed the open hours, so they sent me to a different taqueria, where the foreign currency window stays open late. I was in line behind a (bike messenger?) (street musician?) (entrepreneur with the lightest overall coating of fine dirt?). He was trying to convert old money that had come to him in various ways. Some he found on the ground, some were given to him by someone who said "this is the equivalent of breakfast."

We in the room all agreed that these were handsome bills, but nobody knew what they were.

When the guy who handles the tough questions came out to identify the money, we learned that it was the "old currency" for Greece, Slovenia and Macao. None of it was legal tender, so the guy was plum out of luck. They were going to leave it at that.

Unable to stop myself from helping this guy, I asked the bank guys if the coin dealer still works across the street. Selling this former money as stuff seemed like the guy’s only hope for getting a breakfast worth of dollars out of defunct Slovenian cash. He left with no money, but a pocketful of advice from all of us about how to navigate the whims of the cranky pants coin dealer.