The other afternoon, while I was drinking iced coffee at a café in Shinjuku, an elderly man wandered in. Holding up a banknote, he began making the rounds among the customers, asking, “Can someone change this into small change?” He approached me as well, but the bill was unmistakably a toy—in short, a counterfeit. I immediately shook my head to turn him away, yet he refused to give up and continued moving from table to table. Eventually, a staff member, unable to watch the scene any longer, ushered the man out of the shop, resolving the situation without further incident. What was that all about? Was it a new type of scam, or perhaps a manifestation of dementia? (Kei)

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