How I Almost Went To Jail

So I'm at the grocery, buying sour cream and mayonnaise for some super-healthy jalapeno dip. I pay with a twenty. The cashier takes out her magic counterfeit-bill-detecting pen and swishes it across the bill. She frowns. Draws another line on it. Frowns. Looks at me. Holds the bill up to the light. Frowns. Draws one more line.

"I'm sorry, sir, I need to go get some change," she says, leaving and taking the bill with her.

I can't help but feel insulted by this. Of course she doesn't need change. Obviously, the three swishes with the pen and the frowns mean that she thinks the bill is fake. Now, I don't expect her to say "Pardon me, sir, but I need to confirm your felony," but at least show me the respect to make up a more reasonable cover story like "Goodness gracious, my pen must not be functioning properly! Allow me to retrieve another!" or "Oh, crap, I shouldn't have had that second burrito...I'll be back in a second!"

So she walks over to the customer service department and talks to somebody important-looking. They both glance back at me. I note that the only person blocking my way to the exit is elderly and easily push-out-of-the-wayable, but I'll save that as a last resort. I wonder how exactly you prove that you didn't know you were carrying phony cash. I decide that I'm going to be really ticked off if this jalapeno dip ends up costing me twenty bucks.

Five minutes pass. I decide that going to jail will make a really amusing blog entry.

Then, in a total cop-out of an ending, the cashier returns, apologizes for the delay, and gives me my change. Either somebody verified that it was genuine cash or they looked at my angelic features and decided that I must be innocent. I go home. The jalapeno dip is exquisite.

I blame The Amazing Randi for this whole thing. He's that skeptic with the standing offer of one million dollars to anybody who can prove that they have paranormal abilities. We went to see him speak a few years ago, and he talked about those counterfeit-bill-detecting pens, saying that they're a complete scam. And apparently, all you have to do to make a real bill register as fake is spray it with starch. So, on a regular basis, he withdraws thousands of dollars worth of twenties, sprays 'em with starch, and re-deposits them, with the hope that enough false counterfeits show up that businesses quit using the pens.

I thought it sounded like a crummy trick, because while I doubt that our jails are full of The Amazing Randi's victims, there may be a lot of innocent people who are out twenty bucks. So if you're reading this, Amazing Randi, you made your point and you're off the hook this time, since I got my sour cream, mayonnaise, and change.

But if it happens again, I'm going to use my paranormal abilities to make your head blow up.