I’m no money market whiz kid; and that’s an understatement. I pretty much know two things about money; how to make it and how to make it go away, usually quick fast and in a hurry. So it was no surprise when I was caught with my proverbial pants down recently at a bookstore.

After the cashier gave me the total, I passed her the money, which included coins. She then said something back to me and I didn’t quite get it. I was working and with the little lass and she offered a free translation. “She is asking you if you have any new money. She can’t take the old ones.” Well, even after having had the benefit of translation, I was still at a loss. “New money?”, I asked. The little lass then rolled her eyes and sighed wearily at my ignorance. “Yes, Tara! It’s 2010. You had until 2010 to use the old money. You have to trade it in at Ziraat Bankası. Where have you been?”

Where had I been indeed?

I knew that the money had changed yet again, of course. I remember when the new bills came out. I got paid and I looked at each new bill and exclaimed, “Ooooh! Look at the hundred! Is that Yunus Emre? ”, and “Ooooh, the fifty is so pretty now!” Yes. Isn’t it pretty? (sigh)

When I first moved here, the Turkish currency was absurd. There were all of these superfluous zeros. One lira was actually one million. So when I went to the grocery store, a bottle of olive oil was 13,000,000.00 lira. You can imagine how mind-boggling that was. Everyone said, “Just cut off the zeros in your mind.” And I thought, “Why can’t they just cut off the zeros at the Treasury?”

I finally got my wish the following year when they rolled out the YTL, or Yeni Türk Lirası (new Turkish lira). Gone was the bir milyon (one million) note which looked like fake Monopoly money. I cherished the new zeroless landscape on the store shelves. I became annoyed when people still quoted me prices with the million attached. Amusingly, to this day, some old timers insist on keeping with the tradition. At the pazar, it is not unusual to hear someone shouting, “Bir milyon! Bir milyon!”, announcing that their goods are a mere lira. I do admit that “bir milyon” does have a nice lyrical ring, but I digress.

Just when we were getting used to the zeroless YTL, they switched it up on us again. They redesigned the money, giving it a rather Euro appearance. Rumor had it that in anticipation of Turkey possibly entering the European Union, the money was changed accordingly. Only that theory had a serious plot hole. If Turkey were to become a member, our currency would almost certainly be rendered obsolete and replaced by the Euro, anyway, right? I mean, I suppose we could be one of those lucky countries that gets to keep their currency, and as bull-headed as Turks are, they probably will insist on it. After all, no one is going to be putting Atatürk on the Euro, are they?

After the embarrassing incident at the bookstore, I came home and repeated the story to the Boyfriend. He was also unaware of the whole bank trade-in situation. His thoughts then turned to the treasure chest and what was to be done about it.

We have a little chest on the counter where we chuck all of our loose change. It’s very handy for paying the delivery people that ferry wordly goods to our doorstep. Just as an experiment, the boyfriend attempted to pay the water delivery guy with old money. He was denied outright. Dang! It seemed that someone was going to have to deal with this issue and tonight, that person was me.

I was in a mood. I was even annoying myself, perhaps even mostly myself. The Boyfriend has endless patience and finds even my bitchiness charming. I decided to engage myself in a mindless task so as to minimize the annoying I could do for awhile. I turned my attention to the treasure chest.

When the boyfriend became curious about the clinking of metal coming from the living room, he found me industriously sorting piles. I had old money over there, foreign money over here, and new money on the other side. New money would go back into the chest. Old money would go to the bank. And I haven’t yet figured out what to do with all of the foreign money, but we both enjoyed the trip down travel memory lane by looking at it, anyway.

Then came the part when I transitioned from enduring a mindless sorting to relishing my task. The boyfriend announced that the old money was mine to keep. In other words, I was free to take the spoils! Oh, boy! I suddenly felt like a kid counting out her piggy bank; fantasizing about what I was going to buy at the mall this weekend. And because I am horrible about doing adult things like saving money, I did begin fantasizing about how to blow it, so I guess not much has changed in that department.

When I finally finished the job, my hands were ash grey and I had made 167.50! Not bad for an hour’s worth of zombie-like activity. I was not only satisfied that the job was finally done, but that I was the one who had done it. And I would be lying if I didn’t add that suddenly finding myself flush didn’t perk up my mood, as well.