Burn Baby Burn ©

What should my 800th post be about?
Hmmmm
800 posts and I got 199 soon to be 200 on the other blog.
I talk a lot eh?

But what do you do when you live in a zoo and there is nothing exciting to do?
Well you smoke a couple of joints.
Swallow some beer.
Stare blankly at the ceiling then create an elaborate plan in your egg shell that will create plenty of havoc but lots of laughs a couple of days down the road for all of you to read.

Supplies required:

Computer with photo shop
Scanner
Laser color printer
Recycled printer paper
A five-dollar bill printed before 2006
A razor knife
Steel ruler
Glass top, picture will do
A room, full of drunk and stoned twits

The stage was set the night before during an impromptu beer fest.
This happens once a day every day, that lasts all day at Archie’s place.
The lotto was up around 32 million and all the boys had tickets and were talking about how they were all going to spend their money.
Most had already lost it at the racetrack.

Later that night when most of the guys had gone and there was only three of us left talk drifted back to the lottery and Archie said it would be nice to sit on the porch lighting cigarettes with ten dollar bills.
“Everyone would go crazy”, he said.

I was quietly sitting there listening.
20 years ago when fortunes were different we all used to go nuts with the money.
We didn’t know what to do with it so we wasted it one way or the other and life was just one big fucken party.
When someone scored large, everyone knew about it and enjoyed in the rewards.
I’m talking large now.
Some of the guys have won from thousands to millions just last year.
Then they do their best to spend it all.

They light two-dollar cigars with hundred dollars bills to show off.
Last year Tom walked into the restaurant from the casino after taking in six figures then paid for everyone breakfast that was at the restaurant when he left.
Most of them are happiest when they are broke trying to survive so to them money is to waste and enjoy.

I looked over at Archie and told him he doesn’t have to win to light cigs with tens he could do it now.
He looked at me and asked if I was crazy, he didn’t have spare money to burn.

Later that night at home I was sitting back staring at the ceiling thinking.
Then I pulled out some bills from my pocket.
There was no way to copy anything over a five because of the security tabs on anything above that but the fives didn’t have one yet.

I sat at my computer and scanned the five and printed it out.
It looked perfect but the paper was a little too shiny.
I took some recycled paper I buy to use for miscellaneous printing and printed one out on that and it was a lot better.

After that I copied it a couple of times and arranged it so I could print six bills per page and ran off a bunch of copies, twenty to be exact.
They were perfect to the first one with one exception the other side was white.

After thinking about it for a bit I decided that I would invert the over side of the bill so that they wouldn’t look like the real one perfectly then ran all the sheets through the printer again to print the other side of the bills.
After both sides were printed to my satisfaction I put them on my glass table then using a razor knife and a ruler I carefully cut out the individual bills.

They looked perfect except for the other side, which was upside down.
I crumbled up all the notes one at a time to try and give them a look of being used but all I got was the crumble up look.
After I finished playing with my new toy I stacked the $300 in fivers and put them away for the next day.

Around 3pm the next day I made my way to Archie’s place and we sat outside having a beer when he pushed the stash box to me and asked me to roll a joint for us to smoke.
Arch like people doing things for him.
That’s how he got to be as big as he is by sending people all over the city fetching him what he needs.
After rolling the joint I stuck it in my mouth and asked him for a light and when he reached out with the lighter and flicked in I reached over with a rolled up fiver and lit it then moved the burning bill to the joint in my mouth and lit the joint.
When the joint glowed up I held the bill away from me and we both watched it burn up into ash.

Arch told me to stop being an ass and save my money but I told him I could afford it then pulled out another bill and using his lighter sparked it up and we both watched the frames grow until all of a sudden all there was left was a dieing ember floating to the ground.
Taking out the roll of fives from my pocket I tossed one to Arch and told him to go ahead and burn it.

He picked up the bill and checked it out the flipped it over and back again, he said there was something funny about the bill.
After about ten minutes of close examination he figured out one side was upside down but was still impressed with the quality.

It was here the next part of the post was born.
Arch asked me how many bills I had so I passed him the roll of bill and he examined them after taking them from me and then said that he would keep them but he wanted me to follow his lead.
I told him there no problem there.
Arch is the entertainer of our group.
Over the years we have all settled in our various roles.
Archie is our Ralph Kramden but a little bigger.
He will do anything to make money so he could go gamble at the casino and if he doesn’t go he is usually at home spinning out one yarn after another.

On any given day around 5 pm there are at least six people out on the front porch drinking beer and smoking joints while the cops drive by staring at them.
No one says or does anything from either side as long as everyone behaves there is no trouble.

As we sat there to of Archie’s “Gofors”, Joe and Mahmoud showed up and Arch sent one to the beer store and the other to the grocery store for some meat to cook on the bbq.
He told Mahmoud he wanted pork chops and to make sure to poke the meat to see that it’s fresh.
He sent the Muslim to pick up the pork on purpose the little fucker and this isn’t the first time he’s done stuff like this.

Once he cooked a whole lamb on a spit and he basted it with bacon fat while everyone watched.
A quarter of the guys there were Muslims and I told him that.
He said that a hungry stomach has no god and for free food they would lick the devil’s balls to for a bite of bacon and he was right.
They ate it and took some home for later.
Archie says that there are religious people who believe and follow doctrine to the letter then there are people who use it for an excuse when it suits them.

By the time they got back Mike and Tom were already there drinking beers with us.
George and Bernie came later and were not in on the play of the evening.
We had already told Mike and Tom but the others had returned so we didn’t tell George and Bernie what was planned.

After cooking and eating Archie sat back in his chair and pushed the stash box to me and asked me to role a couple of joints.
After finishing the first one he grabbed it and stuck it in his mouth then lit it with a rolled up fiver while everyone stared.

“Well boys the party starts today” he said then dropped the burning fin to the ground.
Joe was flipping out.
“Last night I won the lottery and today I’m rich and you will all share in my good fortune.
Walker will get $100,000 everyone else gets $10,000 except Joe and Mahmoud because they would only spend it on crack hos anyway”.

Mahmoud told him that he was lying and he didn’t win.
“Yeah”, then Archie pulled another fin from his pocket and lit that up to then tossed it to the ground to finish burning up.
Joe was on his feet yelling at Archie to stop burning money.
Mahmoud said it wasn’t real money so Archie stuck his hand in his other pocket where he had a real five ready just in case and passed it to Mahmoud to see.

While Mahmoud inspected the fiver Archie was telling everyone how we were all taking a trip with his to the Greek Islands and going to pick up all the women we could.
Except Mahmoud that is because he didn’t believe Archie.

Mahmoud protested saying it was Archie’s fault because he always pulls fast ones on him all the time but Archie was adamant that Mahmoud was not going and in fact he should send him away now and not give him any more beer then grabbed the fiver out of his hand then told him to leave for insulting him.

Mahmoud apologized profusely until Archie caved in and said “Fine, but never call me a liar again, now go get everyone a beer”.
Mahmoud took off to get the beers while Archie planned who was going to go with him to Toronto to pick up the check.

The funny part of it all was that George and Bernie were caught up in the joke and at one stage Bernie got mad and grabbed a fin that Arch was going to burn out of his hand and wouldn’t give it back to burn.
That sparked an argument with Archie who was getting a little more than drunk by now.

"I will burn my money if I want to and NO ONE will stop me not even the Queen of England”, he bellowed as he pulled another bill from his pocket and lit it up.

“So no one tells me what to do with my money”
“That’s why its made from paper because money burns baby”.
“BURN, BURN IT ALL”!!!!!!!!

“Hey Arch”

“Not now Walker, I’m on a roll”.

“But Arch”

“I said not now, I got them all and reeling them in”.

“Yeah I know but…”.

“You see this, this is MY money and this, this is MY lighter.”.
“You put them together and you get pretty lights”

“But Arch”

“Will you stop bugging me”.
“ I got these morons wrapped around my finger”.
“See this bill, watch my lighter”.

“ARCH”!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“What the fuck is your problem”!!!!!!!

“You have been burning tens for the last little while, I only gave you fake fives...”.

Have a nice day

Walker