Candied Currency

As near as I can tell, the only reason treasury departments exist in government is to come up with new ways to fight off counterfeiters. That is why the US rolls out new details on the $20 bill just about every year and even though it is slightly annoying to have new money every few months because 2% of your brain becomes convinced no stores will take your old money, you never hear about massive amounts of fake money being passed around, so I guess it is working. The only issue to me is that the bills are starting to look slightly silly. Perhaps it is just too many instances of looking at Monopoly, but I simply can't take brightly-colored money seriously (which is why I am not a good International traveler). I was willing to chalk it up to the fact that there is only so much you can do with paper money, but now I have learned that when it comes to money paper is so last century. Last November, Canada passed a bill introducing polymer-based currency, which has been used in Australia since the late 90s. On the surface it makes a lot of sense because by having money which is essentially laminated, the currency can last longer in circulation and it makes it harder for criminals to copy it. Canada started rolling out $100 bills last year, then introduced the $50 version at the start of 2013 and the $20 note in March. For the most part people seem to be happy with the new currency, but like all new things it has taken some getting used to.

The money has started to finally become part of common circulation, and as more people handled it more people started to notice two things about it. The first is that the money tends to become sticky when it gets really hot and has even melted in a couple of extreme situations. That is not a good problem to have, but we are talking about Canada here, so enough hot days to melt money can't be too common on a problem. The other issue is not nearly as serious but much more fun and that is belief among many citizens that the $100 bills smell like maple syrup. Now, immediately some people have begun to dismiss this notion saying the money does give off an order but it is not syrup and it is only because Canadians love their syrup that they made that sensory connection. Personally I would think the much more logical answer is if the polymer has a slightly sticky quality to it (which gets worse when the money is warm) than it stands to reason the money would start to take on the smell of whatever food it most comes into contract with. Anyone who has ever had pancakes for breakfast knows how easy it can be to get a little extra syrup on your fingers and sticky is worse when it connects with extra sticky, so I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there really is some syrup residue on the bills. The only reason people have noticed this the most regarding the $100 is that it has been in circulation the longest. I bet if you waited a few more months people would be making the same claims about the Canadian $50 and $20 bills. (I guess these are the perils of a syrup-based economy.) I guess this leaves us with just one question: does this syrup-smelling money mean Canadians should adjust the phrase to remind their kids that in addition to not growing on trees money doesn't grow in them either, despite what their nose tells them?

I can't tell if I love or loathe the idea of money which smells like different things. I mean, it could be really funny if we started to tie certain denominations in with certain smells. (Obviously the higher the value the better it smells.) With all the bad smells out in the world wouldn't it be nice if every time you opened up your wallet you got a little break from all of that? I mean, we could set it up so that the $20 would smell like fresh bread and the $10 would smell like Thanksgiving dinner. As an added bonus it would make people more hungry and they would spend more money on food, strengthening the economy. Of course, I realize how flawed this plan in. First off, for every 10 people who would like the smells we picked there would be 1 person who didn't like the decision because they don't eat fried food and another person who didn't like it just because the government shouldn't decide how our money smells. More importantly it would get dangerous if we started to associate smells with how much money a person has. Right now there could be a man in Toronto getting mugged because he walked passed a group of thieves giving off a strong odor of maple syrup and they took this to mean he had a large wad of $100 bills on him when the reality is he just came from a Waffle House.

Now, we've all painted something and noticed it came with a funky smell that went away eventually, so I'm sure it will only take a couple of months of the money being passed around before the polymer thins, the odor wears off and everyone goes back to having normal money which doesn't smell like breakfast. And I think this is for the best because I don't want to be able to smell what the last person who touched my money had for lunch. Taking it another step I just know smelly money would cause me to think about what else they may have touched and while I don't consider myself to be a germaphobe, I certainly don't want to sit around and think about all the various people who have touched my money or the possible levels of their hygienic standards. This is one of those situations where out of mind is the best thing for all involved. That is the main reason why I don't see polymer money becoming too popular too quickly - the idea that if it is a hot enough day the money could have some DNA on it from the last person who touched it is a little too much for me to think about. (Then again, the fact that I am pretty much the only person I know that is my age and still prefers to pay for things with cash is probably the biggest reason it won't matter what money looks like for much longer.) With 300 million people in this country there is no telling what money comes into contact with and it is probably better if we don't know. After all, they say most American money has cocaine residue on it and that is without the polymer coating. Though if I had a vote I for one would much rather have my money tainted with syrup than drugs.