I once thought I understood proper tipping, but now I am confused. More and more the machines where I pay ask if I want to leave a tip at places where I seldom tipped before, such as a bagel shop or a coffee bean retailer. But I was very surprised when I went through a toll booth and I was asked if I wanted to tip.

The handwritten sign in the bar’s window said:

          Here’s to Strong Women

                    May we know them

                    May we be them

                    May we raise them

When inside, I said to a favorite server that the sign was offensive. She asked if that was because there was no reference to men, and I replied, “No. Because there should be another line: ‘May we love them.’ ” She gave me a thumbs up and a fist bump. When a bit later I saw the at-least-once-burned owner and said the same thing, she snapped back, “No one believes in love anymore.”

Until recently I was not aware that Stellantis was a major American car maker. Of course, until recently I did not even know that Stellantis existed.

I was only trying to spread hope, but the mother seemed upset when I peered into the stroller and said, “Some two-year-olds get better looking as they grow older.”

All those TV sports shows ought to interview college athletes about their favorite professors and then produce clips of those teachers both in the classroom and interacting with the athletes outside of classes.

A wise person said: “The fact that you cannot serve God and mammon does not seem to have hurt business any.”

The sidewalk sign for a neighborhood establishment said among other things that I could buy “esoteric products” on the second floor. Can you tell me what I could expect to find?

If a son is a “Junior,” is it psychologically harmful to him if his father is not “Senior?” Does this help explain Donald Trump, Jr.?

Trump Sr. boasts that gasoline prices were much lower when he was president than now. He is correct, but even when he is correct, he is wrong. He says that the prices back in his presidential days were much lower than now. They were, but he quotes prices that were much lower than they actually were when he was President and then quotes much higher prices than is true for today. Is there a name for this syndrome where a person tells falsehoods even when the truth favors him?

When Trump took office, the cost of gasoline (“Obama’s gas prices”) were lower than the averages during the next four years. I have never heard Trump mention this.

“The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them” Samuel McChord Crothers.

“The best liar is he who makes the smallest of lying go the longest way.” Samuel Butler.