Inside looking out: Dollar Bill’s therapy class

Nowadays we have therapy classes for every kind of problem. Imagine there’s even one for the lowly dollar bill. Here’s a look at what goes on inside a room full of recovering George Washingtons.

“Hi, my name is Dollar Bill and I can’t take it anymore.”

“Hi Dollar Bill.” They all greet him.

“I was separated from birth from my family. When we came off the Treasury rollers, I thought we’d go out into the world together, but before somebody folded a crease in my belly, I was alone and scared and tossed on a counter at a Shoney’s gas station store in Virginia.

“I thought I saw my brother one afternoon when he came into one of my wallets from Dunkin’ Donuts, but the last three serial numbers didn’t follow mine.

“Speaking of wallets, I can’t take the 10s and 20s suffocating me inside the stink of festering leather. And they are all bullies!

“ ‘Hey, Little Bill,’ an Abe Lincoln Five said to me. ‘What you gonna do today? Get shoved into a vending machine at the bowling alley for a Snickers bar?’

“I was humiliated. They laughed at me. I even tried to stand up for myself. I told them I’m worth 100 cents and 100 is a lot, but they laughed even louder. The 20 dollar Andrew Jackson said, ‘If you get cashed into pennies, now there’s 100 more orphans lying dead on roadsides and sidewalks all over America and it will be all your fault!’

“I couldn’t wait to get out of there” said Dollar Bill. “Then I got motion sickness. From wallet to register drawer. Register drawer to wallet. Wallet to Walmart. Walmart to pocketbook. Pocketbook to a back pocket of a pimply faced kid pumping gas in Jersey.

“By the way, for the record, I didn’t mind the vending machine. Got sucked into a nice cool box and just lay there till the man came and put me back into circulation.

“But look at me now. I’m old and I’m wrinkled. No soda machine can take me in anymore.”

Dollar Bill wiped a tear from his United States Federal Reserve System seal. He took a breath and looked out at his brethren. There they sat, cursed with the same name, listening to the stories they’ve heard in this room 100 times before.

“There were some good days,” Dollar Bill continued. “About three years ago, I fell out of somebody’s pocket and the wind blew me into a wheat field. One day, I felt a hand on my corner and I was lifted off the ground. ‘Oh boy, a Dollar Bill!’ shouted this little kid. He took me to his home where I lived happily doing nothing for who knows how long until he finally spent me on a bag of Skittles.

“Then there was the time I paid for the first slice of pizza in a brand-new pizzeria and the owner taped me to the wall. There I stayed for five years until he lost his business. Then he used me along with a big pile of bigger bills to buy some of those funny cigarettes he liked to smoke when he got stressed.”

Dollar Bill took a deep breath. He looked out across the room and saw a sign on the back wall that said, “The Buck Stops Here.”

“I have one more story to share,” he said. “Just last week, I was lying all alone inside an old lady’s pocketbook as she walked down a street when I heard someone running behind us. All of a sudden, WHAP! I was on the ground! Somebody hit the old lady on her head. Then an angry voice shouted, ‘Gimme your purse!’

“No!” she screamed. She was on the ground clutching her purse in a tug of war with the thief. Finally, he wrestled it away. He pulled me out from under the tissues at the bottom of her Coach knockoff and he shouted, “This is all you got! A stupid Dollar Bill!’

“The old lady helped herself up and grabbed me on one end while he held me from the other end. They pulled back and forth until they tore me right across my GW’s face. Another inch farther and I’d be worth nothing in a Monopoly game.

“He finally let the lady have me back. She got home. She taped me up, but if you look closer, you can see GW’s right eye is lower than the left one.

“I’m at the bottom of the paper chain,” said Dollar Bill. “People keep saying, ‘What can you get for a dollar anymore?’ They even named the Dollar Store after me, but if you’ve been in one lately, I can’t pay for squat by myself.”

Dollar Bill l gazed across the room. He raised his voice in desperation. “What can I do? Please help me!”

From the front of the room, Ol’ Buck stood up. “We are what we are, son,” he said. “There’s only one thing we can do when we’re out there getting slammed into tip jars, slid into slot machines, and slapped onto bars for a happy hour beer.”

Every “one” in the room was now standing with him. “When you’re down and out,” said Ol’ Buck. “Remember who’s got your back.”

“Ready, boys?” he asked. At his signal, they turned around and showed him the words, “In God We Trust.”

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.