I’m usually a sucker for projects that get innocent bystanders acting as a collective, so when I discovered that one of my dollar bills had an URL stamped on it, I was thrilled. I was miles from any internet connection, so I tucked it aside in my purse and forgot all about it for a few weeks, completely disrupting its natural flow through the economy.

Eventually, of course, I remembered my lonely little bill and went to wheresgeorge.com (George, of course, is that skeptical-looking gentleman pictured on one dollar bills) to register it. And I was so disappointed. It was full of popup and banner ads for dubious products and services, and there were no stories there. The only things people seemed to register about their dollar bills was where they were found and how scruffy they were.

A far cry from the stories my teacher had us write when I was a kid: A Day in the Life of a Coin. The Birth, Life and Death of a Pin. Adventurous things always happened to the coins and pins in those stories. Had I ever written about dollar bills that bill would have have an interesting existence.

I suppose they might, too, at wheresgeorge.com. If they let you write more than 120 characters about your find. Or have you a different experience of the site?