The Lighter Side of Money

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Aug 1, 2000

It's just money -- if those words stick in your throat, then this article is for you.

Here's what we know about money:

It talks.
It doesn't grow on trees.
It is often accused of being the root of all evil.

We also know that money can't even buy happiness, and yet people have killed, and been killed, for it.

For an inanimate object, money sure packs a wallop. So it's no wonder many of us regard money with a mixture of fear and awe. Somehow, it has become so intrinsic to our very existence that I can't conceive of a world without the stuff.

All the more reason to lighten it up a little.

Money, in one form or another, has been making the world go round since about 9000 BC. Learning the history of money takes away some of its mystique, because money as we know it today had very humble beginnings, according to PBS's History of Money. Back then, it's widely believed that cattle were the currency of choice. Not too convenient, especially by today's standards.

Today, depending on where you live, the moolah has been replaced with loonies, bobs and bucks. And that's not all. Just for the fun of it, you can find more money monikers in the Atlantic Monthly article Money Talks, by J.E. Lighter. (There's a therapeutic value to all this name-calling; a loonie, for example, may inspire a lot of things, but reverence probably isn't one of them.)

Through the years a lot has been said and written about money. Websites like Some Sayings and Cautions About Money is filled with quotes by the famous and infamous. And if you're looking for jokes about money, try Funny Money.

Some people may choose to tame the money beast by making it their hobby. Websites abound for collectors of money; collectors of paper money can try Paper Money WWW Directory for helpful articles and tons of relevant links. Coin collectors can go to Coin Collector.org. And Canadian collectors of wooden coins even have their own website, the Canadian Association of Wooden Money Collectors.

One of the most irreverently entertaining uses of money has to be money origami. You can learn to make butterflies, eyeglasses and more from your dollar bills at Clay Randall Jr.'s website, Money Origami.

So money doesn't have to be taken quite so seriously all of the time. And if we lighten up a little, money seems less of a master, and more of the servant it was intended to be. Sure, money is important, and sure, I wish I had more of it. But it is after all just money; it's what we do with the money at our disposal that can make life worse, or better, for ourselves and those around us.

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