My Crazy Experiment

Well hello there. “What the heck is this blog all about?!” I hear you cry. Fear not, my friend, all will be revealed. So, today is the 29th September 2010. It is a rather unremarkable grey Wednesday afternoon. It’s has been the first day back at university and of the third year of my degree (a sharp intake of breath is appropriate here).  After sitting through two rather tedious lectures on how it’s time to buckle down, suddenly acquire some organisational skills, and that my dissertation the thing my entire life has been working up to, I come home and settle down to a nice cup of tea. My lovely housemates are present; Emma, Beth and Sophie. We chat as usual about our day and have a giggle.

Now, as with most interesting topics of conversation, I can’t for the life of me remember exactly how it came about. Suddenly we were talking about the fact that I recently received a one dollar bill with a telephone number written on it from a Bureau de Change. It was just like the film Serendipity and for a while I was convinced that some magical twist of fate had put this dollar in my hand and that if I called the number I would find my ‘true love’ (insert rolling eyes). Now, if you’ve never watched the film Serendipity refer to this and you will understand entirely.

So, we started talking about whether I should have called the number and how crazy it would be if I had. You can imagine some guy or gal in America who wrote on a dollar bill a million years ago suddenly getting a phone call from a random English girl. It brings up all kinds of questions; why would they write their number? Is it even their number? What state are they from? How far around the world did this bill travel and how many hands has it passed between? What was it used to buy? Has anyone called the number before? If you think about it, the life of this dollar bill is unbelievably interesting let alone the owner’s! I mean, I exchanged pounds to dollars so I could go to Malawi so in the short time it has been in my possession it has crossed continents.

I think I still own this dollar bill but I’ve moved back to uni now so ringing it is not an option even if I did find the courage. Then I thought: Why don’t I initiate the journey of a bank note? Was this a good idea? We couldn’t decide. We all know you shouldn’t give out your number willy-nilly, ‘what if some weirdo calls it?’ Sophie asks. I think about this for a moment but decide I  generally have an affinity with weirdoes anyway. ‘It could be found by some murderer!’ Emma suggests. I hope that murderers will be too busy to call anyone, you know, murdering. Besides, I say that even speaking to a murderer would make life quite interesting! So, as usual, I decide to throw caution to the wind. I get out my pen. I laugh and joke that I should put ‘Call for a good time’. Is writing my number really a good idea? Oh heck, some criminal could probably find this information if they rummaged through my flipping dustbin anyway.

I route around in my purse. This morning I had a five pound note but I used it on a bus ticket. However, I am the proud owner of a crisp new £20 which my mum gave me when I left for uni. Twenty whole smackers; hopefully it will fall into the hands of a higher class of murderer then. Also, I quite like it because it’s the same number as my age so if somebody rings me when I’m, like, fifty-two I’ll be able to remember what year it was sent! Clever, eh?

I’m going to send it off into the cosmos. You never know where it might end up. And if anyone does give me a ring on the old dog and bone, I’ll write it here. I think it’s quite a cool project. I’m not sure how I will come to part with my twenty squids but I’ll let you know when I do.
There we have it.

Yours absurdly, Alice x

The glorious twenty in question