The Money Museum

Everyone needs a day off, now and then. I've found my brain just works better if I can have some time to completely squander on selfish interests. With the scramble of the past eight months, I've lost a lot of that time.
So it was that I decided to take a mental health day last week. Forget the book marketing, forget the unsent emails, the promises to my daughter.
What I wanted was a morning at the Money Museum.
The Money Museum, in case you haven't seen the billboards, is an educational area at the Federal Reserve in Kansas City. For years, I've heard about scout and school groups going there, but our kids missed out on it somehow. So last week, I decided, it was time to go.
I must admit, part of the appeal is the free souvenir--little bags of shredded money visitors can take home. Supposedly they're cut too fine to be able to piece together into a bill. But then maybe the Fed underestimates my determination.
Really, though, I just like the idea that the Fed has something called a "Money Museum." I think of museums as places you go to look at something formerly common but now rare. Like tepees and paddleboat wheels and dinosaur teeth. So it seemed perfect that I should visit one to see what this thing called "money" used to look like.
To get to the museum, you first have to go through a scary marble and glass security area with full airport x-ray equipment and guards in a glassed-in booth. Once inside, the museum occupies a corner of the building's first floor.
There are little touch-screen kiosks that tell you about various aspects of the Federal Reserve--the reason "why you can trust your bank," as one sign says. And there was a movie screen in the middle. But the thing that caught my eye was a long wall with examples of coins minted during each administration. Half-pennies, half-dimes, double eagle gold pieces. Who knew money used to be so interesting and fanciful? (How much were those gold pieces worth? And how, exactly is a half-dime different from a nickel? There wasn't any script to answer those questions.)
There were a lot of other things there, too. A gold bar worth $471,139, tantalizingly close in a display case that invited me to pull the lever to feel how heavy it is. Some war money from the Confederacy and World War II. (Didn't see any scrip from old company towns though. Probably, it's a sore subject now.)
Best was a long time line with objects from the Kansas City Fed over the years. You can start at the right and take a walk down memory lane of Federal Reserve red-letter days. I looked tenderly at the Glass-Steagall act of 1933, and then at its repeal in 1999, which has been widely blamed for the banking speculation that brought the economy almost to collapse last year. I spent a minute pondering 1935, when married women were kicked out of their jobs to make way for the men. And at that day a few years ago when banks could electronically process checks, thereby erasing the "float" on which our budget always depended.
Last stop, around the corner and down a hall, was an area I like to call the "crying room." On one side is a wall of bills (or facsimiles) behind a transparent barrier. This, we are told, is what $40 million of $100 bills looks like. You'd have to spend a dollar every second for 15 months to unload it all, according to the sign. Personally, I doubt that. How about we set up an experiment so I can test their data?
And at tour's end is a window to one last room. Two or three workers are loading stacks of bills into a conveyor on a low, gray machine. I see a window into the machine, with a flashing strobe. Apparently it's reading the money. Look closer, the visitor center greeter advised me. See that tube blowing dust up into the ceiling? That's worn out bills, on their way out of the shredder.
Aaaauuugh!
On my way out, I picked up a couple of pamphlets, a box of colored pencils (non-toxic. Made in China!) and, of course, my little plastic bag of shredded bills.
"There is approximately $165 of unfit currency in this bag," reads the label. Hmmmm.
Well, gotta go now. Got some work to do. Don't call me. I'm going to be busy for a while.