Irecently went to the bank to cash some savings bonds my grandmother gave me for my 10th, 11th and 12th birthdays. Her wrinkled hands pressed the paper bonds into mine and said, “You might need these someday.”

My grandmother died just before the 2018 government shutdown, but the bonds didn’t mature until 2022. I had been so busy with my government job since then that I hadn’t gotten around to cashing them. As they were a government financial product, I expected some kind of bureaucratic hurdle — perhaps a special banker or a demand to present my original Social Security card. Not so, it turns out.

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