If you can't tell, that photo is of 38 one-dollar bills...laminated together. Why on earth someone would waste such a precious resource by rendering it useless is beyond me. It was a sorry sight. It didn't take much calculating to figure out how many piano lessons' worth of payment or what percent of Jon's paycheck was stuck in that plastic graveyard.
Instead of crying over the spilled milk, we turned it into a lesson for the kids. We asked the boys whether or not the laminator had been wise with his finances; whether or not it was a good idea to deface money; and what would have been a better idea for preserving currency. We then moved on to some deeper questions: what other ways do we waste possessions that could be compared to the laminated money?
Next, we looked into ways of fixing the problem. Jon had done some Googling that said occasionally banks would take the mutilated money and exchange it for legal tender, so Monday the kids and I took a few trips to various banks to find out the validity of this claim. Based on the gawking stares of numerous bank tellers, I'm pretty sure most of them had never seen anything so strange before. While none of them were willing to exchange it, we were given the federal web site for damaged and defaced currency where we found instructions for being reimbursed for our laminated bills.
We've not yet mailed the specimen to Washington's defaced currency agency, but it will be fun to find out what happens. While we might never be able to redeem those 38 dollars, we were able to glean very valuable lessons on using wisdom, being good stewards, and thinking through our actions. It was definitely worth the $38!
