When a customer of First Missouri State Bank recovered a zip-top bag of cash he'd misplaced during the ice storm last winter and the flooding in March, he got an unpleasant surprise.

The vinyl bag had been left in a wooden desk, unzipped, and he told Michelle Johns, manager of the Jackson branch, that it had been damaged by rodents.

He brought in the bag in August to see if anything could be done.

"I told him I'd take care of it because we were really busy that day," Johns said.

When she and employees Cristal McCoy, Wendy Aufdenberg and Jamie Koch dumped out the contents of the bag on the bank's long counter, most of the bills were mutilated beyond recognition and littered with bird feathers and rodent feces.

Federal policy dictates that both serial numbers, in the top right corner and the bottom left, are needed to get credit for the entire amount of the bill, so the employees set about the task of piecing together the shredded cash.

"With that mess, I didn't know if we could do anything with it," Johns said.

Mice had devoured most of Andrew Jackson's face from the majority of the $20 bills in the bag, Johns said.

The four women pieced together as many serial numbers as they could and came up with $1,000 -- the amount the customer believed he'd had in the bag.

The federal mint requested all of the contents of the bag the money had been in, so everything -- the torn money, feces and feathers -- were shipped to the mint, where it can be examined, Johns said.

The mint will then issue the customer a check for the exact amount the torn money is worth.

Occasionally a bank customer will come in with half a bill they found or accidentally ripped to see if it can be redeemed, Johns said, but she's never seen anything like the bag of mouse-eaten money.

"The customer's very grateful," Johns said.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

388-3635