Cash

How much cash do you have in your wallet?  If you're one of my kids, the answer is "None."  Increasingly, cash is becoming a relic of the past.  Debit and credit cards have replaced the greenbacks.  I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.  I suppose it's a little of both.

I was 34 before I could get a credit card.  And that was only because I was added to my 27-year-old husband's credit card account.  I'd had a full-time job since I was 22, no debt, and no criminal history.  So why was I unable to get a credit card on my own?  Sexism, pure and simple.  Nonetheless, I have maintained that same credit card account since 1984, and it is the only one I own.  And then last week, someone used it to go on a few cab rides in NYC and eat a couple of Happy Meals at Ronnie D's.  Today is Day #6 of the 5 - 7 day window for my new card to arrive in the mail.  Netflix has already put a hold on my viewing until they receive payment.  That is just one of the many ways I have been inconvenienced by this little act of evil.  No West Wing for me tonight.

Without thinking, I stopped at the liquor store today to pick up a birthday present for a friend.  (And one for me, even though it's not my birthday.)  I was in line to check out when I realized that I do not have a credit card.  But I also realized that I had cash in my wallet.

Cash.  Real money.  And this is something else I realized:  when I handed the cashier my two $20 bills, I was acutely aware that I'd just spent some money.  When I hand a cashier my credit card, it doesn't register.  It never registers until I get the monthly bill.  And then it's How the hell did THAT happen?

I am expecting my new credit card tomorrow.  If I doesn't come, I will be off to Vermont the next morning minus the convenience of a credit card.  I'm not even sure how one pays for gas without one.  Will my EZ-Pass still work?  Or did they, like Netflix, put a hold on my account?  Will I have enough cash for gas, food, incidentals?

I do have a debit card.  I guess I need to remember how to use it.  But just to be safe, I will stuff my wallet with some good old cash.  Gotta love the dead presidents.  (That's slang for paper currency.  Yeah, I just learned that, too.)