George vs. geocachers

This morning I went to put my dollar into the candy machine here at the office and noticed a www.wheresgeorge.com stamp on the back of my dollar bill. And in a moment of curiosity (and knowing I really shouldn't eat a candy bar anyway) I decided to keep the dollar and log onto the website to find out where my bill had been.

Well, the bill's history consisted of two entries, one of which was mine. And where was it originally logged in?

Westbrook.

A whole 4.6 miles from my zip code. Not nearly as interesting as the kids' travel bugs in New Zealand.

And it was funny I should compare it to geocaching because there's actually a page on the wheresgeorge.com website about geocachers. Apparently the George people aren't so keen on geocachers using bills as travel bugs.

The general rules of this site specifically prohibit trading or exchanging bills with friends, family or anyone known to the bill distributor. This rule is to encourage "natural circulation" of the currency, and to prevent multiple "fake hits" from happening on any bill. Afterall, the purpose of Where's George? is to track the manner in which currency naturally circulates throughout the country and the world. Allowing people to arbitrarily enter multiple hits to track that a bill was traded among a circle of friends and family defeats the entire purpose of this site.

Poor George, feeling threatened by geocachers. Where's this game's sense of fun? Oh I know, it's with their related Where's Willy website....