Faked Out!!!

Ever see those movies where you've got these Big Bad Baddies who hatch some ridiculously evil scheme to circulate counterfeit currency around the city/country??

I became a victim of such a conspiracy last week...

I was rushing to my evening mandarin classes after a gymmin session, n hopped into the first cab available... the driver seemed pretty friendly, had a good chat (in mandarin, too... that means my mandarin conversational skills r improving Big-Time!! WooHoo!!)n when i arrived, turns out I didnt have change, so I paid him with a 100... no problems, as cabs usually carry alotta change here (found it kinda surprising when I first got here)..

so my change included a 50... i was still a novice in the art of differentiating between original n counterfeit currency.. little did i know that I was about to receive a crash course that very night...

later that night, i went out with a couple of friends for dinner, n threw in my 50 as we split the tab later.. turns out, my 50 was rejected as counterfeit... when i took a closer look at the note, turns out it was almost PLASTIC!!! n the hologram looked TOTALLY forged now that I took a closer look!!! Man, did i learn my lesson that nite... but its pretty common, so its not like they called the cops on me or anything...

neways, so i had that 50... n tried gettin rid of it a couple of times: at the bakery, cab rides, other restaurants... it got rejected EVERYWHERE!!! n then last nite, i went to the night-market to fill up my weekly quota of pirated (but excellent quality) movies... n just casually handed the shop owner my 50 n continued browsing the shelves... he was inspecting it (Damn, i thought... he's gonna reject it too...).. turns out, he hands me back my change!!!! Finally!! I'd gotten rid of the fake 50.... considerin id pretty much relegated that 50 to 'Lost-Money' earlier, i decided to splurge the balance...

So later that nite, a couple of burgers n fries later, a content n well-fed Diego hit the sack, having learnt a valuable lesson in the detection of counterfeit currency, and glad to have finally placed that 50 back into circulation within the economy...