All debts

A recent Explainer column on Slate examines whether private businesses are obligated to accept cash. Evidently they're not, but what gave me pause was the link to the article on Slate's main page. It reads, "Why stores don't have to take your dirty cash," and I thought that meant the article was about whether private businesses are obligated to accept dollars that are filthy, tattered or otherwise mutilated.

That question made me recall my trip to Cambodia a few years ago. American dollars are widely accepted in Cambodia, and some businesses that cater to tourists (restaurants, firing ranges) even refuse to take the local currency, the riel. I was surprised to encounter our familiar greenbacks in the kingdom, and even more surprised when I closely examined what looked like a crisp, new dollar bill, because it bore the signature of W. Michael Blumenthal. He was Jimmy Carter's treasury secretary, you'll recall.

Yes, Cambodians regularly handle American bills that here would have disintegrated into microbes ages ago. The bills look new because Cambodians are very careful with their sawbucks, and merchants there indeed do not accept dollars that are filthy, tattered or otherwise mutiliated. I learned that when I had a torn dollar handed back to me with a polite shake of the head.

I later gave that torn dollar, and other dollars, to a Phnom Penh policeman who randomly shook me down on the street one evening. I guess members of a debased constabulary don't have to be so choosy.

As any traveler would, I brought home riel notes as souvenirs. But had I been thinking, I would have brought back some of those disco-era dollars, too.