There's an old saying that: "Nobody knows nuttin'." I can't speak for anybody else, but I certainly believe it in my own case.
I recently obtained a credit card. (I know. I know. I didn't get a driver's licence until I practically needed a walker to get around, either. Some people are late bloomers, okay?) One month, I paid off the credit card through an ATM machine at my bank. The money was immediately withdrawn from my bank account, but I was to find, to my international embarrassment, that the credit card debt wasn't actually paid off until 10 to 14 days later.
Where did the money go in that time?
I remembered an old bank motto: "Making your money work for you." I immediately had an image of my money, stripped to the waist, wielding a shovel on a construction site. Heave! Ho! Heave! Ho! My money wipes the sweat off the brow of the prime minister on its back and wonders when it will be allowed to take a lemonade break.
Or, better yet, my money stands in the pit, shouting at the top of its lungs, trying to get the best price buying and selling, uhh, humans. The market has been on a downward trend for a couple of years, and my money has to work harder than ever just to keep the clients of its brokerage firm solvent. My money checks the clock below the ticker and calculates how much time will have to pass before the afternoon bell will ring and it can take a lemonade bre -
Aww, who am I kidding? My money is probably a chronic underachiever. It's probably wandering the streets of the city in a coat three sizes too big and far too heavy for the balmy weather we're having at this time of the year, begging smokes, sleeping on heat vents and muttering to itself about how best to block the gamma rays the aliens have aimed at its head. My money likely cannot remember the last time it had lemonade...
No, no, no, no, no, no, no,. This is too cynical. Maybe...maybe my money went to Paris to visit relatives. Yeah. Sure. Money is liquid - it travels around the world in the blink of an eye. I can see my money sitting in a café on the Champs Elysee, drinking - what's French for lemonade?
Yes, I would have liked to believe that. But, knowing my luck, it was much more likely that my money had been stopped at the Canada/United States border and taken aside for a bout of rude questioning. Canadian money, well, it's different...foreign...suspect. My money was probably desperate to reach me, but had had a hood pulled over its head and been taken trussed like a donkey to some undisclosed location where the rudeness of the questioning would be allowed to get out of hand. Ever had electricity hooked up to your invisible watermark? Man, you don't know what pain is...
No, no, that's not fair. Despite the excesses of their government, I have yet to meet an American I disliked - the people are better than that. If it is in the US, my money is probably sunning itself on a deck chair in Miami, considering whether or not to take up that cute Lire's offer of a shuffleboard match. Or, it could be blowing high dough in Vegas. Or it could be getting mugged at an ATM just off Broadway.
Hey - you know you're welcome in a city when it treats a tourist just like a local.
Oh, wait - I've got it! My money was actually on a secret mission for the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, infiltrating suspected Al Qaeda print shops in Petawawa and points north of 40. It was, of course, forbidden to have any communication with its former owners while it was passing itself as "funds laundered through informal Arab financial networks." My money was doing a brave service to its country - how could I be so unpatriotic as to complain that I lost sight of it for a few days?
Hmm. Perhaps somebody should tell me that the odds are that the bank just keeps the money until it's moved from one account to the other, pocketing the interest itself. After all, even late bloomers need to face reality at some point.
