ok ok ok so I have a couple things to talk about and I have only been back at work for a few days. Just as a friendly reminder I work part time in an ice cream shop. The people there are amazing and so caring. They support everything I do and every time I see them I am always happy and ready to rock and roll....well unless if I am hangry. Then not so much. 

So I'm back at work opening to store and minding my own business and the moment I walk in I get greeted by the manager who I shall call "Dancer". So Dancer greets me with a big "Hello!" and "How are you!" which is pretty standard. Immediately I feel like I am back home again and I can't help but smile. I walk around the counter and notice he’s making some boxes and has a huge box on the counter filled with our stuff. I get the lay down of what happened the night before and who ordered such a magnificent order. Of course I can feel myself smiling. Sure I’m not out adventuring right now but, for me that’s ok. I only have three weeks till my big half marathon race and after that I am traveling around for a month with Spice. Yet I do feel at home in this store. 

So after I get a walkthrough of what happened last night after I went home (the day before was my first official day back ) we go through the usual things. We talk, catch up on everything, I clock in, Dancer gets ready to leave while helping out customers at the same time and eventually he does leave. 

Now its just me and the chocolatier. She’s only here for another hour and then I’m by myself for three or so hours. So we chat and catch up and I feel myself settling in. Working and talking while being surrounded by all this chocolate is just so comforting. 

Now in walks in this lady. She's by herself and my coworker is busy so I help her out. I go through the usual introductions and she gives me her order. I give her the ice cream and we go and check out. Now for what she ordered the total is $4.75 so of course she hands me a $5.00. Now I dont know if you guys know about our money but to make sure that it is real they put a strip through the bills. This way when you check with a scanner then you can see the line and know that the bill is real. Now this lady is not at fault for handing me this bill. She had no idea and I can tell by her face when all this was happening. So let me break this down. 

She hands me this $5. I take our scanner and run it across the bill and just to clarify it is very old. The bill looks like it may have been through the wash a few times or crumbled into a ball, either way it was in pretty bad shape. So I scan it once and there’s no strip. I turn it over and still no strip. I do this about three times before I ask my coworker to check for me, in case I may have missed it. All this while this lady is stunned and isn’t saying anything. She’s looking at me like I told her she's got cancer. So my coworker scans the bill and when she couldn’t find anything she holds it to the light. Nothing. Not a single sign that the bill is real. Unfortunately we didn’t have a pen to check the paper so it was really all under this scanner. 

My coworker takes action and asks the lady if she has another bill to pay with. No words, just hands another bill. The $5 that we think is fake is sitting on the scale and she REACHES OVER and takes the bill going "let me see that". Now for these types of procedures you have to leave AS LITTLE fingerprints as possible and this lady just grabbed it and started touching it like it was the softest blanket ever. I was stuck staring at her but my coworker quickly took it back from her and explained in better detail about what she was doing. She took the bill by the corner and put it in a zip-lock bag and put it in the back. The entire time this lady is staring at me. Talk about awkward. I didn’t know what to do so I was glad that there was someone else to follow. Eventually she left not saying anything else and we apologized about what we did five or six times before she finally exited the store. After that my coworker left for the day and I was by myself. 

Later I explained to my boss about what happened and he gave me steps on how to act if I run into another one. It was a good twenty minute conversation. I really thought that I had messed up or was in trouble. I didn’t want to make them mad at me when I had just gotten back. 

So once the conversation was over I went back to my duties and kept serving and stocking. Being by myself was nice and I had time to get things done. Then my friend/coworker who I call D came in for his shift. I greeted him, briefed him on the counterfeit and went on with our way. Well not too long after our conversation about the money I ran into another possible counterfeit. The guy was standing at the register and I was scanning his $5 bill and I again couldn’t find the strip. This customer acted better about it but was also very astonished. I asked him what he would like me to do, would he like the bill back or would he like us to take it and send it off to the bank later. He took the bill back and asked if I would check two other $5. I did and they barely passed the strip test but still passed. He was astonished and told me he got those as change from another store. 

Now to be clear, I have NEVER had an issue with fake money and now that I have I can tell you that I myself would have never seen that coming. There was two in one day and to me that is crazy. 

Have you guys ever come across fake money?