When I grew up in
Alberta,
Canada, two
dollar bills were VERY rare.
You might see one every few months.
The most common explanation for this was that the bill's
reputation had been destroyed in an
election campaign in which a candidate/party had tried to buy people's votes using two dollar bills although one would also
hear the "
whore note" explanation from time to time.
Whatever the reason, two dollar bills were really hated by some people.
An example:
I worked in a service station (synonymous with gas station, petrol station, gas bar, etc) when I was in high school.
One day, I innocently gave a customer change using a two dollar bill.
The customer was insulted big time.
I ended up apologizing profusely and gave him a pair of one dollar bills instead.
Considering my personal experience with the scarcity of two dollar bills, I was more than a bit surprised when I travelled to
Ontario for the first time at about 16 years of age.
Two dollar bills were so common that they actually had a separate space for them in the cash registers!
This may seem perfectly normal to those who grew up in Ontario and similar places but it really surprised me.
As indicated above, the Canadian two dollar bill was replaced by a two dollar coin in 1996.
Unlike the bill, the two dollar coin (i.e. the "toonie") has proved to be quite popular in Alberta.