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February 09, 2005

Bad Money

Back in the late 70s, I was a manager of a Quick Trip convenience store in Grandview, Missouri. We had a customer who had extreme Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and was perhaps a bit on the paranoid side. He carried a bottle of Clorox Bleach in his car, and would pour the bleach all over any money he got as change. He also poured bleach over his hands, making his skin look, well, odd.

I had completely forgotten about that guy until I read this.

It seems that the Russian drug rings in the Northeast Corridor have taken to liberally dosing their ill-gotten money with a toxin derived from the bacteria staphylococcus. The money was wrapped in plastic, but when law enforcement got it, they opened the package and got sick.

I guess my bleach guy customer was way ahead of his time.

This is a worry, though - what a way to introduce disease to the general populace - money is passed so quickly from one person to another -- tainted money in the wild could be catastrophic.

Posted by Beth at February 9, 2005 08:23 AM