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Oasis In a Black Hole
‘Those are old dollars!’
Warning: This essay includes mentions of racism, stereotypes, and family members saying dumb things. If you’ve never had to sit through an uncle explaining a racist joke, congratulations. For the rest of us: I don’t agree with what’s said — but I’m also not pretending it didn’t happen.
It was the middle of the workday on a Tuesday, and I had run out of money.
Days before, I went into an overdraft. And judging from my Monzo fees, not just went but actually sat there, made myself cushy, and brewed a pot of tea for the entire Financial Conduct Authority.
Just a few weeks before, my mother had mailed me some cash, which should have solved the problem of being broke — albeit temporarily — if only I had remembered that I had it.
“Those are old dollars,” my mother said to me on the phone, like, seven million times. “Go to the bank and deposit them.”
Living in London means never having cash on hand — it has less value than rocks from a beach in Brighton — but in Russia, cash is still very much welcome.
What is more surprising, at least for me, is that there are several versions of dollars. The old bills, the ones you see in the movies, are mostly green and black with a simple, uniform look. The new bills are more…
