A 77-year-old woman is trying to collect a 147-year-old debt from the city of Tampa. During the Civil War, shortly after Florida joined the Confederacy, her great grandfather loaned the city a modest $300 to purchase defensive supplies. She is in possession of an IOU, made out to her ancestor and signed by the then mayor of Tampa. Accounting for inflation and 8-percent interest, her great-grandfather is owed roughly $23 million.

Naturally, the modern-day City of Tampa has told her to take a long drive off a short pier (damn, did I actually just say that?). Rather than calling Tampa during dinner and mailing letters full of shame-inducing language, she’s decided to enforce her right as an American and sue their pants off. When asked by NPR as to why she’s collecting the debt now, she replied “better late than never.”

Now Tampa has a lot of very good reasons why this debt isn’t valid, namely that the loan was paid in Confederate dollars. Last time I checked, the Treasury isn’t printing that particular currency because THE UNION WON THE CIVIL WAR FOUR YEARS LATER. Have you ever seen this Confederate currency? It wasn’t standardized because of how scarce supplies such as engravers and printers were in the South. Basically, they got by with whatever they had. The money had images of notable CSA politicians and military leaders like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and “Stonewall Jackson.” (or, you could just go stare at Stone Mountain for a while) Other aspects of Southern culture was represented on the bills, such as slaves smiling happily while picking cotton and receiving Kunta Kinte-level beatings. States and banks minted their own bills, counterfeiting was rampant, and by the time everyone realized they probably weren’t going to win this one, the Confederate dollar had about as much purchasing power as the Iraqi Dinar.

This lady would probably do better submitting this IOU to the Antiques Roadshow than as evidence in a court of law.