Show me the money....

This evening when Michael came home we had our usual “How was your day?” exchange. Then he stopped all conversation by dropping a bag with $3000 onto the counter in front of me. The brain boggles a bit when it encounters that much money in one place – at least mine did and I suddenly stopped talking. He just stood there grinning. So the two biggest thoughts competing in my brain at that moment were: 1) “Holy Cow!!! That’s the most money I’ve ever seen in one place at one time!” And 2) “So that’s what the down payment on a child looks like these days....” Slightly cynical I know, but now that we’re going to Russia, I’m starting to realize that to a large extent, the money we’re spending is to “buy” our child while giving money to the system to help the others left behind.

The whole “money issue” was one of those tasks that was on Michael’s to-do list. Russia doesn’t exactly work on the credit card system, so for each trip we have to carry cold hard cash. And it has to be new. No rips, no tears, no wear & tear. Just new pristine bills. So when he went by the bank, all they had in new bills were $5 bills. $3000 in five dollar bills adds up to quite a stack. Just so we don’t look like we’ve both added a spare-tire at the waistband we’ll be trying to change some of those $5 into $20 or larger bills in the morning. Even so, I thought you might like to see what $3000 looks like.