How often have I been working on a
project or paging through expired
catalogues or butterfly collecting,
only to realize that's it nearly 7 p.m.
and I have yet to eat. There's
nothing
in the apartment that doesn't
require
minutes upon minutes of
preparation,
to say nothing of waiting
for
something to be delivered. And
going
out requires going out. Worst of all,
it's not that I'm cheap, I'm just lazy.
Money is no problem, really.
Or is it?
Why is it that when we want to
obtain
sustenance to maintain our busy
and
important lives we have to
exchange
this paper substance for expensive,
bulky food products? Why can't the
money itself be edible? Why don't
we
have an Edi-Bill?
I propose that the government
reissue all of the currency in an
edible form. In order to maintain
sanitary conditions, the Edi-Bill
would come sealed between plastic,
and be carried in a special
dispenser
wallet that would interface with
registers for payment and change. If
you decided that you wanted a
snack,
you could use the wallet interface to
enter the amount in $1, $5, $10
and
large-appetite $20 increments that
you wanted and it would pop out
the
side.
The Edi-Bill would a combination of
vitamins and food products
designed
to expand slightly when it reached
the stomach. It wouldn't be a
complete food substitute, but it
would
serve well as one meal a day. The
Edi-Bill wouldn't have to be tasty
(we're not trying to put restaurants
out of business here); its natural
papery condition would do fine,
perhaps with an added hint of mint
or lemon for flavor. Nothing to get
in
the way of shoving it down and
getting on with your life.
The Edi-Bill. If time is money, then
why can't food be too?