
This off the AP Wire last night:
"A 28-year-old man who attempted to pay for his bar tab with gum wrappers was arrested after a scuffle with a police officer on Tuesday night, authorities said. A bartender told police the man was playing pool with an open bottle of beer and spilled some of it on the table. She said he first tried to pay his $32 tab with a credit card, which was declined.
When police arrived and ordered the man to pay his tab, they reported that he began counting out gum wrappers as if they were cash."
Now, anyone who isn't a drunken idiot can tell you: gum wrappers ain't worth squat.
When I first read this story, I thought that he might have tried to pay with Bazooka Joe comics, in which gum is also wrapped. The comics could also be argued to possess a monetary value, as they are redeemable for valuable prizes such as x-ray spectacles and gold-plated insignia rings. This, of course, led me to the question: How many Bazooka Joe comics would it take to pay a $32 bar tab?
Let's do the math, shall we?

Using the information gleaned from this circa-1985 comic, we can infer that, at that time, 195 comics were worth 40 American cents.
Ergo
.40 = 195 comics
32/.04 = 80
80 x 195 = 15,600 comics would cover a $32 bar tab
These numbers have obviously not been adjusted for inflation, and time constraints prevent me from further calculations. I am leaving it up to you, the Beware of the Blog-reading mathemagician, to help me figure out this weighty problem.
Images courtesy of The Onion and childofthe1980s.com