Frazz by Jef Mallett for September 30, 2021

When my older dad accidentally dropped some change, he would tell me not to pick it up as it would make some kids day.

I still care enough to cash in my returnable cans for 10¢ each. My 40 year old kid, though, just considers the bottle fee to be a tax that he shrugs and pays. And I now happily spend a dollar on something that at this kid’s age I’d have dithered about if it were a dime.

Borrowing a library book on tuning a carburetor is an anachronism?

I always got a dopamine rush when I tuned my MGB carburetor!

I assumed that she was the daughter of a gearhead/hot rodder who still owned & messed with carbureted engines (like a certain red station wagon) and thought that was an appropriate book. I guess I am an anachronism, and I am alright with that.

That may have happened back when people made more use of their libraries. Nowadays whole sections could have antique bills still waiting to be found.

This reminds me of the old trick of folding a dollar bill a certain number of times to set the points gap or the spark plug gap in older cars (pre-electronic ignition). I could imagine something similarly anachronistic with a carby.

I was having lunch next to a wilderness lake and noticed an old rusty can with the lid attached. Just for fun, I put a dollar bill in it for the next person to find.

“Literally paying it forward”

In my state, we have the 10 cent deposit on bottles and cans. I actually read a bottle once, and found out that it’s illegal to throw them out. I always return mine anyway. The whole point of the deposit was to keep returnable containers out of the environment and hopefully recycled.

I heard a story about a woman who was telling her grown daughters that her mother would have spring cleaning and hide a dollar bill somewhere in the house. Anyone who found it it could keep it. Her daughter said, “Mom, you should have done that for us.” She replied, " I did."

Libraries have indeed changed to be more like technological centers. In the past you had to and knew to be quiet throughout the entire library. Now the ones I am familiar with have quiet reading rooms away from the activity of the rest of the facility. Some even have small cafe counters.

Some of us still have vehicles with carburetors. In my case, a 1971 Honda CB100.

I have a Silver Certificate dollar bill I use to bookmark my copy of Atlas Shrugged. It seems appropriate.

Frazz extolling the virtues of drug addiction

My grandmother kept hundred dollar bills hidden in some of her books, and I was the only one she told. Given that she was into a lot of woo-woo, those books on reincarnation would have gone into the dumpster after she passed if I hadn’t let my uncle know to check them all carefully.