During the war, Serbia didn't suffer from mere inflation.

It suffered from hyperinflation.

I can't tell you how many stories I've heard about what it was like back then. Zivko and his friend once combined two paychecks from their parents ... and weren't able to buy a pack of cigarettes. Dragana's mother took a bus a couple of kilometers away with enough money in her pocket for the return fare. Or so she thought. One day later, the driver almost kicked her off when she tried to get home.


If you didn't spend your money the day you got it, it would be rendered worthless by the next. Notes began to have more zeroes running across them than an Astros box score -- on a day that Roger Clemens takes the mound. Sometimes stores had food; a lot of the times, they didn't. Deutsch marks began to be more valuable than gold. People who had hoarded stores of those before the Serbian economy went to hell were the lucky ones. They didn't have to go through the ordeal of changing their next-to-worthless dinars on the black market, from some shady Serbian dude working from a wooden table on the street.


Of course, it's funny now. Dinars aren't going to knock the British pound off its perch anytime soon, but you can put a note in your pocket, fall asleep, and still be able to buy milk and bread (and cigarettes) with it the next morning.


And the irony. Oh, sweet irony. Those next-to-worthless hyperinflation notes? Some stupid tourists pay upwards of 15 euros for them. Smarter ones pay four or five. And the brilliant ones?

They just ask Dragana to give them one.


"Five hundred BILLION dinars!"

I actually pocketed the 50 billion bill, not the 500. With Dragana telling me to just take whichever one I wanted, there was no way I was going to be "that guy" who takes the biggest piece of cake, or the nacho with all the jalapeños on it. Ten minutes after making my selection, I found myself in line at the supermarket down the street. I had forgotten all about what was in my pocket, mixed around among the real dinars, that you can actually use today.

When I pulled out the big boy -- which actually felt more like wax paper than money -- I briefly considered handing it to the cashier.

Then I started to crack up, and I scrapped the idea.

But man, would it have been funny.