when was the last time you tossed a coin into a fountain?

probably 15 years ago? i don't really run across fountains much anymore tbf.

A dozen years ago, on vacation in Rome so obligatory Trevi coin toss. Before that, at least another twenty years, likely with my kids at a zoo or park.

not since i learned to play dnd, now i throw em into sewers

it's funny i've been thinking about exactly this, though

i used to teach "nuclear vs fossil vs renewable" as an overarching theme of my chemistry course (now it's more about "the pros and many cons of fossil fuel and western diet") ... anyway i don't do this anymore (the details of nuclear chemisry got moved into my physics classes) but on the very first day we'd look at enrico fermi's reminisces of an experiment he did at trevi fountain. it wasn't so much about the science but just the idea of a ripple effect and a place lost to time (in his case doubly poignant because he fled fascism) ...

thread title reminds me of a trevor bastard post containing the immortal phrase "feral children masturbating in the Diana Memorial Fountain".

I never carry any coins and have not done for years - the only coins I have are in my house and are reserved for the ice cream van. During my parent years I always avoided fountains because my kid was always trying to drink the water, which was no doubt full of bacterial danger .. and cum! And he'd frequently climb into the ones in wretched shopping malls setting me up with an argument with some thick security guard dickhead while I was trying my best to retrieve him. I'm so done with public fountains forever. They are ruined for me!

which was no doubt full of bacterial danger .. and cum!

One of the great vivid imagery lines

Probably in Bath about eighteen years ago; on the tour of the baths there's one pool that you can throw coins into if you want to curse people, so I spent 5p to wish bad luck on someone I disliked in my study abroad group.

the guard is being a dickhead because the mall owns that money now, or at least that’s how it is around here!

i forget the details but i witnessed a similar argument, someone was trying to retrieve a sentimental (valuable?) coin they’d lost and the guard was suspicious, because it involved removing and sifting a large number of coins (like $10 worth from a million dollar shopping arcade)

he was saying it added up to like $5k a year so tbf maybe those earnings were the entire budget for the segway scooter he had rolled up in / on