Journal Entry No.2 - Money is for Neanderthals!

Freddo gave me a gunked up fiver this morning. "Here," he breathed, pushing it toward me while rifling through his dirty old canvas shoulder bag. "This is for the coffee." He meant the lattés I bought us on the way home last night. His sticky fingers made the crumpled up piece of green parchment even ickier. As much as I wanted to theatrically whip out the rubber cleaning gloves, I was nice and picked it gingerly from his loose grasp, trying to touch as little of the bill as possible. Once I had it, I could tell that his hand was sweaty. Ewwww.

Changing scenes to today, downtown DC. I just used that five dollar bill to buy myself a little lunch. Thank God it's frigid outside, as I could keep my little knitted gloves on while trading it to the cashier for a few items from one of the city's ubiquitous lunch buffets. It's taken a while but I'm finally getting used to the food here. I'm not spending all day in the bathroom anymore. Hurrah for positive change.

Anyway, I've gotten ahead of myself. There's a reason I want to recount to you my little story of the grubby Lincoln. It was gross. It is gross. Money, in general, is gross. MONEY IS GROSS!

Money. Even the word gives me the creeps! It's a necessity here, but a disgusting one. The entire world revolves around the concept of money, half-paralyzing us into believing that money matters most. I've delved into some long conversations about economics with some supposedly knowledgeable people, and I understand why this monetary system has evolved. How else are we going to do it with so many people, not to mention so many soft products? You can't trade a loaf of bread for five lines of computer coding, or pay for your mortgage with the sandwich you just made!

Oooo it causes me much frustration! I am filled with palpable abhorrence. Where I come from, you really can friggin' pay down your home loan with sandwiches. Trading in some obscure engineering for bread? No problem! Everything you produce is accounted for in terms of the greater good, and you trade it for whatever you need. What you have is a mirror onto how much you produce, no matter your product. (Unless you chose not to acquire anything.) You don't even have to physically hand anything over -- well, not currency anyway. It's all managed for you by the Everweb in real-time.

Hmmm. I guess it is a type of credit-based system, but it's so pervasive and fluid that it just feels natural. Come to think of it, I've become fairly adapted to your arcane system here... except when I'm reminded of it's vast limitations by a sweaty, sticky and stinky fiver.

It's just occurred to me that you really need to know more about my background. The short version is that I've been flung here from far in the future as part of a (not nice) practical joke. The long version will be told in driblets over coming journal updates. The crux of everything is that I've nearly lost all hope of being rescued from this prison-of-the-past. I have to break out or I'll lose it... and this diary is the only way I can safely do that. Aside from these online escapes, I must remain stoically reticent about my true past- er, future-- oh, whatever.

These little posts are more for me than for you. They are to help me maintain my sanity. Therefore, sometimes you just might have to wait until I explain something, assuming I ever get around to it.

"Lunchtime's over, Little Miss Sulk! Get back to your day job!" The only reason I have this boring, inane job is.... icky money. Bleech.

~Vivea