My mom was right, about one thing

When I was young, my mom told me I shouldn't put money in my mouth, because "you never know where that money has been."

I could alway understand that about coins. Coins get dropped in the gutters and then given back as change ten minutes later at the Seven Eleven. Coins even get fished out of the toilet and reused.

When I was young, I got a science kit for Christmas. My favorite thing from the science kit didn’t even need the science kit. I learned that if I mixed baking soda and vinegar, and then dropped my dirtiest pennies in the mix, then they come out ‘clean.’ It’s not really clean, but this shiny alien-like, neo-neon type of penny that is technically clean but is rendered completely non-penny-like.

My point is that pennies are really dirty. So, it’s obvious you shouldn't put them in your mouth.

Bills on the other hand don't get dropped in the gutter or fished out of the toilet. That's why I didn’t believe my mom about putting those in your mouth. I did see this mobster movie where there were tons of bills with blood all over them, but the nice mobsters washed the bills all clean and hung them up to dry.

The worst I could picture a dollar going through is being dropped in the mud. I've eaten dirt before and it wasn't that bad.

Then, a few months ago, I was at this strip club. The stripper was just wearing a thong.

She bent over, and this guy with a dollar bill moved her thong aside, spread her cheeks, crammed the dollar bill up to her nether regions, and twisted it back and forth, for a very, very long time. Now, I like beautiful strippers in thongs and nice behinds as much as the next guy, but something just struck me as unsettling with what I was looking at.

Suddenly my mind turned into one of those movies where a tape played fast backward through significant points in my life.

I was ten years old again, with a dollar bill crammed in my mouth, smiling sheepishly, and my mom yelling at me. 'You don’t know where that’s been! Get that thing out of your mouth!'

Links:

• Rich Dad, Poor Dad book
• Top 10 shows ruined by management (often about money)
• Where's George?
• Info about the gold standard

Photo purchased from iStockphoto.