Woman claims cash turned into toilet paper

A shopkeeper in Bog Walk, St Catherine, is still puzzled after what she thought was nearly $12,000 in cash turned out to be toilet paper.

Late last month, Gloria said that she was having a 'Ben Johnson' Thursday at her grocery shop, as at 1 p.m. she had only made $370. But about 30 minutes later, a customer walked in and ordered goods amounting to $11,700.

"Mi glad bag buss, because mi did have mi daily partner fi throw and mi never see da $2,000 deh. Mi say the man lift off quarter a mi shelf dem and mi feel good. Mi put dem (the notes) in the cash register and gwan bill back," she said. Gloria said she made a few other sales, but at the 7 p.m. closing time, the smile was wiped from her face. Except for $4,000 that she had sold later that afternoon, there were only scraps of tissue.

"A mi alone inna the shop the entire day. Mi never go anywhere, suh mi draw out the drawer and look behind it fi see if the money drop behind it. But up to now mi can't see a dime. Mi never put any tissue in the draw either, so mi don't know how it land in deh. Weh mi money gone I don't know," she said.

Gloria said she is convinced that the customer used some form of magic to trick her, and cited several persons posting about similar experiences on blog site Pinkwall.

"From dat, him (the man) nuh come back a mi shop and mi see him a walk pass mi with goods inna bag. Mi nuh bother ask him nutten because him a go deny it, but mi know some monkey-jumping business gwan,"she said.

But magician and illusionist Kemarch Dodd said he is not convinced that anyone can magically turn paper into money.

"What happen is really an illusion, and nothing else. There is no supernatural connection to what we do as magicians. What we do is to make a switch between money and ... it happen so quick that the human eye may not be able to pick it up so fast. Similarly to when we were children and we used to play the game 'two little black birds sitting on the wall'. Before yuh know that there was a finger switch, yuh use to think that the paper disappear and return as well," Dodd said.

Dodd told THE STAR that while he believes the monies have gone missing from the complainants, he thinks there is a more rational explanation.

"Some of these people probably misplaced their money or someone in their household scamming them and replace the money with papers. These are how rumours are started and the poor customers, or the last person who shop is going to get the blame," he said.