Dollars and Scents 

      As we move into an increasingly cashless society having real, actual money in your pocket seems to be less alluring as it once was.  It is written right on our money "This is legal tender for all debts, public and private."  Nevertheless, there are a few places of business that refuse to accept cash (these same won't accept checks either).  This really isn't the norm (yet), but they have signs displayed in their establishments saying something on the order of "Credit Card Transactions Only."  I think that these places are afraid of being robbed.  Of course, online purchases are cashless.  Just try to pay a fine at the courthouse with cash (I know someone who tried).  If you protest it by showing them the quote written right on the bills, you will be escorted to someplace you don't want to go.  
      There are people who just aren't as enthusiastic about cash as they once were.  Our cash here used to always be just the same shade of green, with black printing on the front, and a dark green ink on the back.  We used to look at all the colors of money from other countries and jokingly call it "Monopoly Money."  Then in an attempt to make counterfeiting more difficult, and make our cash more appealing the mints started to revamp our money, so that now we also have "Monopoly Money."  

      All over the world there are little things being done to make money look better.  There are ghost images, watermark type images, and even some cases of holographic images being added to the bills.  Images of famous artists, scientists, explorers, and such are put on their bills, rather than just political leaders.  Up in Canada they have raised the bar for making cash more attractive again, or so many people insist.       
      Up here in Northern Minnesota, we love the Canadians (or Cannucks, as we call them).  They talk the same way as us (with the exception that they have a few people up there in Thunder Bay region, for instance who have a heavy Scottish brogue, or the French speakers living near Winnipeg - and yes there is that entire province that speaks French only, but they're SO different that it's hard for me to think of them as Canadians).  Up here, their coins at least are accepted the same as our own.  It is not at all uncommon to get Canadian dimes or quarters in our change.  They even have the same denominations as we do (they don't have nickels though).  They like fishin', eh, and so do we.  We are a huge hockey state, and the Cannucks love their hockey too.  We have many other similar likes, dislikes, and interests; including, and not limited to snowmobiles, walleyes, northern pikes and muskies, moose, deer, a disgust for interfering political schemes, guns, rivers, lakes, and lots of trees, and delicious maple syrup.  

      We are only a little over 100 miles from the border here.  I have discussed this very thing before with friends of mine from the former, but still great Canadian rockin', folk band Tanglefoot.  While sitting around at a mutual friend's house one evening they mentioned that most of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the border.  I told them that I think of Canada as the very northern part of Minnesota, and they replied that they consider Minnesota to be one of their long lost provinces. 
      This is why I find this story so interesting.  People in Canada are claiming that the Royal Canadian mint has added a scent to their money.  They say that their larger denomination bills smell like maple syrup.  They go on to say that the smell is increased if you scratch or wrinkle the money.  Officials, on the other hand insist that no such thing has been done, but the "believers" are not so easily dissuaded.  Officials are getting calls from all over the country with questions about the maple syrup smell to their cash.  An official stated in an interview that he was asked by a woman if her bill was still good if the smell went away, or if it had expired.  

      Actually I kind of wish they did really put a maple smell in their money.  A possible theory (my own theory) is that maple actually came out of the pores on people's skin while handling the money.  

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      Related, but not related to this, there was a neighborhood in some eastern city (sorry, I don't remember which one) that was evacuated for a possible gas leak.  after searching all over for the leak, they found the culprit.  Several cases of scratch and sniff cards with the smell of natural gas had been thrown into a dumpster.  After the garbage truck picked them up, the crusher made them all activate.  The cards had been part of a failed attempt to make people aware of the smell of natural gas.