Attention! Conspiracy is afoot!

*I ran. I ran as hard as I could. It wasn't fast enough. As I turned my head back, time seemed to dilate; I could see the beast's mouth opening, as a monstrous roar issued from the gaping maw of t-*
"YOU!! PAY ATTENTION!!", bellowed my teacher. Well, ok, she didn't bellow, I was right in front of her, but it still seemed loud to me.

However, her remarks got me thinking(ha-ha-not-funny); what was this mysterious "attenshen"? Some sort of new currency? And why should I have to pay a fine for daydreaming in class? I mean, everywhere I go, everyone seems to be rich as far as “attenshen” goes. Everyone seems to be able to pay unlimited amounts of it, meeting even the high costs of school without flinching. "Pay attention in school? Of course I do", was the general response I got. What's more, everyone seems to be able to pay attention, everywhere. I must be getting old, if everyone's gotten rich in a new (and possibly international) form of currency without my knowing.

I can just imagine what the headlines must’ve been like...”World strikes it rich! Everyone except random guy in India is now a billionaire in new currency!”. Lovely.

But if it’s a real currency, then there's gotta be some kind of "Attention Economy", with depressions and bull runs and everything. I wonder how many dollars to the attention...but since everyone I meet seems to be throwing attention away like it was immaterial, I'm pretty sure attention's been pretty heavily devalued recently. Attention is probably worth as much as German marks were after WW1.

I'm pretty sure that there's a conspiracy afoot here (yes, another one of those); I mean, no one will show me these new currency notes, and when I ask for a loan of some (okay, a few million) attention(s?), people just laugh. It's like the whole world is trying to keep me attention-bankrupt, like a massive, orchestrated attempt by the entire world to keep one random person in the dark. A little implausible, perhaps, but more believable than the suggestion of no conspiracy at all. After all, there’s always a conspiracy. And it’s always aimed at the person who discovers it. True wisdom indeed.

Recently, I was discussing this idea with a friend of mine (incidentally, he’s attention-bankrupt too). He brought up several very good points; for starters, are there attention banks? In that case, can we change dollars/rupees into attention? Or (more importantly) vice versa? What’s the going rate?

If we can, I'm going to the bank first thing to get some attention. Rather, to convert some attention into harder currency. Alternately, we could steal some from someone with lots of it – some of my classmates, for example, are never told to "pay attention". I'm sure they wouldn't miss any. From there, all that’s left is to pay off the collectors, and I should be home free.

Random non-sequitur: why do we say "thank you"? It's like third person. Or caveman speak. Or something. I mean, "I thank you", could work; "we thank you" would be fine; but "thank you"? Who is thanking me? You? Your pet dog? The stoner across the street? Dubya? It's like saying "am smart", instead of "I am smart".

I think I'll go check with the bank now. Time to put on my ski mask...