Would You Take A Pig In Trade?

Oh my goodness, do you know what I saw today??  A woman writing a check – in public – in a grocery store- holding the whole world up!

I haven’t seen anyone write a check out in a public place in - I don’t know how long?

No wonder things were slower in the 70’s, if all the people in the grocery store line were writing checks – and I think they were – there is no way ANYTHING could have been speedy.  

She had to dig the book out of the bottom of her purse, find a pen - How much was that again? Fill out the amount on the ledger, find the right page, hold the book open with her other hand, balance it on a three inch ledge, then she FINALLY got around to writing on the check – How much was that again? Then she wrote some stuff and some more stuff and just when you thought she was done – How much was that again?  

Then the cashier needed her ID – some more purse digging, pull out a wallet, unsnap it – dig some more – find the ID, pull it out – then the cashier has to write the ID number on the check….. and this was in the “Less than 15 items aisle”,  she spent seven dollars…..

Now I’m not going to tell you we don’t write any checks – we do – the property taxes and donations to charities get checks from us – this is all for tax tracking purposes – I can flip the book open at tax time and the numbers are all right there – no digging.  

But in the in the rest of the world everyday life?  If you have a checking account – then you have a debit card – OH MY GOODNESS – USE IT!  Swipe it, poke in four digits, agree – boom – your done – mere seconds.  

Honestly, there is a local radio station in town that calls people who hold the world up with their fussing around “Anchors”, she was definitely an “Anchor”.  I had no idea I’d be so bothered by it all, but she wasn’t a very old person – maybe in her early 40’s?  Certainly she is familiar with the debit card – it’s been around since 1984… she would have been a kid then, so she grew up in a world that always had a debit card.

Do you like the fountain pen with the check book picture above?  Yeah, I found this picture online – it seems someone agrees with me about the check book being a bit outdated, because they paired it with a most inconvenient pen.  At least I can report – she did use a ball point – no ink wells were needed in this transaction…..