The Currency of Trust

The Currency of Trust

Face assaults on your reputation with humility and grace.

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“The Big E” is New England’s annual 17-day multi-state fair, featuring barnyard animals, future farmers, purveyors of fare foods and artisans.

Yankee Candle’s yet-to-be-waxed “Big E” scent would be the fragrance of sweaty livestock, spun sugar, deep-fried cholesterol on a stick and freshly-roasted turkey legs.

The soundtrack of screams emanate from amusement park rides that spin, twist and flip its occupants, inducing bulimic behavior.

I wander the fairgrounds, consuming the same amount of calories in one afternoon that mid-sized countries intake annually.

Out of respect for the pigs, cattle and chickens who think they’re there on a field trip, I finish my bacon-wrapped ground-beef chicken nuggets before visiting their compounds.

In a gastric stupor, I end up in one of the many vendor shops, the offline Etsy before the online Etsy was even a thing. Crafts, crap and collectables await to lighten my financial load.

I find myself buying a wrought iron wall decoration, paying with a crisp $50 bill once earmarked for oversized corn on the cob, grilled in the husk, doused in butter, showered with salt and served without utensils, a napkin or dental floss.

I rush out of the vendor’s small tent, anxious to get the piece of art I neither need nor want into the car so I can hurry back to stand in line with people I don’t know to get on a roller coaster I don’t want to ride.

“Hey!”

It could have been one of the 1.5 million people there hollering to get the attention of one of the other 1.49 million people there. Yet somehow, I know that “hey” is for me.

And it is.

The artisan confronts me, “You paid with a counterfeit bill!”

The hell I did!

I know I haven’t used any counterfeit money.

Knowingly.

The affront on my integrity is replaced with piss-offedness directed at the unknown forger who has duped me with fake money.

The small business owner becomes the grand marshal of the parade back to her shop. The effigy of my once-perfect integrity floating on display.

Back in her American-dream tent of opportunity, she pulls out my $50 bill and points at the 3 black lines from the counterfeit detector pen.

She grabs the pen and tries another spot on the bill.

And another.

And another.

Six strikes against me and we’re losing space on the scoreboard.

“Stop. Please. I have more money.” I fan out a few $20 bills for her to choose from to cover the cost of the wrought iron decoration in which I have officially lost interest.

Having established myself as the circulator of counterfeit currency, she tests the authenticity of my $20 bill.

It is also counterfeit.

As is the next $20 bill.

And the next.

The scent of noxious marker permeates the injustice and brings clarity.

Avoiding too much condescension, I innocently ask, “When did Sharpie start making counterfeit pens?”

The short session of permanent marker huffing slows her response, but she eventually looks up like a drug addict caught in a rebound high.

The rosy blush on her face is her tell of embarrassment as she pushes my $20s back at me in an “all in” manner.

She releases me from her pen with a sheepish laugh, a flock of apologies, my wrought iron decor, my restored integrity and a great story.

Our intentions, regardless how pure, can get marked up by misperception, usually the result of accidental miscommunication.

When we face those assaults on our reputation, do it with humility and grace.

Because to be fair, we’ve all inadvertently circulated wrongdoing.

There’s just more value when we invest in a currency of trust.