The Silent Vector

                       The silent vector 

Today we had the grandkids over for turkey day. There was much food (sooo nice to be an American with more food than we need), much interaction, and amongst the conversations a discussion of money. Someone claimed that America was on the slide to oblivion…to that I say pffft.   

But, the kids being old enough to know that money buys stuff,  heard us talking about money and of course wanted some. My wife gave the kids incentive to do a task by promising two dollar bills for the task accomplished as directed. The two dollar bills were soon in the hands of the young ones.

Not long after, they were warned to not put money into their mouths…which brings us to the topic of the silent vector.  Ever wonder about the paper money that you have just been handed? Thought about the number of transactions that each bill represents? Ever contemplate what the bill may have been used for other than legal tender? Paper money is used for everything imaginable. Origami, napkin, tissue, band-aid, toilet paper, snorting tube, thickness gauge…the list goes on. 

But it is the hygroscopic nature of money that concerns me. The fact that paper money accommodates the absorption of moisture makes it a perfect media for the growth of bacteria and other microscopic critters that thrive in such an environment. This mobile petri dish for pathogens is a silent vector that we rarely consider as such.

Money is in point of fact, a vector that people eagerly and greedily handle with wanton delight.  I wonder how much sickness is transmitted via the paper money vector? I think that once our currency is no longer of the paper variety that the population will suddenly get healthier.  

So there you have a Thanksgiving Day story of the unconventional kind. Paper money is the delivery system of convenience for those pesky microbes that make us all cough, sneeze, race to the bathroom and worse.  Got change for a twenty?