Where's George?

I never thought about where my money goes, although I do know where it comes from (not from trees, thank you). Usually I spend it for the most part on bills and expenses, with the occasional pleasure here and there, such as a dinner out or some treat for the two of us. Once it leaves my hands, I no longer have it, and it isn't my concern anymore.

Well, I just got a five dollar bill back in change the other day, and printed at the top in red letters were the words "Track this bill at www.wheresgeorge.com." I was curious enough that when I got online, I typed in the URL. This is apparently a website that's been around for a while, although I hadn't really heard of it up until now. Here, you can enter the serial numbers of bills you have in your purse, wallet, pocket, icebox, bottom left corner drawer, fake sugar box, or what have you. If someone else who later receives the bill does exactly the same thing and enters the serial number, then you'll see where your money winds up.

Since the five spot I had was obviously already registered, I decided to go ahead and register at the site, and then enter the serial number, and see what kind of history my money had. Nothing shady, I hoped, but I figured I'd get at least one hit. I wasn't disappointed. The bill was originally registered online in July 2003, in New Jersey. In this day of airplanes and other such big traveling contraptions, this perhaps wasn't as exciting as, say, dropping a bottle in the ocean and hearing from someone in the South Pacific eons later, but it was still fun to know my five dollar bill had once been in someone's pocket in New Jersey.

I think it would have been far more interesting to know exactly what happened to the five on its way from New Jersey. Where was it the last 20 months? Which businesses did it visit? How long did it take before it got to the West Coast, or to put it another way, how long did it stay back East? Of course, there's no way to know that, and this website depends on others entering the travelogue for each piece of funny green paper. Although I know I probably won't get any results until I spend it, and then maybe not for a long time thereafter, I decided to enter the serial numbers of the remainder of the bills I had, and see if anyone else follows suit. I don't plan to do this all the time; there are better ways to waste time, and certainly far more fascinating websites where to spend the days of my dissolute adulthood, but I view it as an experiment. Sort of like the pen pals your teacher set you up with in elementary school, or the "Flat Stanley" paper dolls they mail out nowadays (I read the book long ago, and although I never mailed out a "Flat Stanley," I thought the concept was cool. Even today I think it's a shame I can't mail myself to Hawaii, or Europe, or somewhere a little more fascinating than West L.A.). We'll see what happens, and I assure you if my money ever makes it to Outer Mongolia, I'll be sure to let you know.