Our younger son sold a utility trailer on Facebook Marketplace last week. When he came inside after closing the deal, he was holding a stack of $20 bills.
“Look, he paid me in 20s,” he said, clearly pleased with the wad of cash.
“Cool,” I said. “Real money.”
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As a child of the 20th century, I grew up in the paper-money era. Just like everyone else my age, I’ve been herded into the “paperless” 21st century.
I would gladly go back to the era of bulging wallets and money clips. I remember when men, especially guys who worked with their hands, carried cash-stuffed wallets the size of Big Macs.
I prefer all things analog. Last month, when the radiator cracked on my wife’s SUV, I was relieved to raise the hood and see coolant sprayed around the engine compartment. At least the problem was obvious and not buried in some computer module.
Checks are also dying out. The same son who sold the trailer had to write a check the other day, and he asked me, “Where do I sign it?” This was after I had filled out all the other parts, leaving only the signature line blank.
“Bottom right?” he asked.
“That’s correct,” I said.
I realize that raging against the digital world is like tilting at windmills. Our shift to a paperless world is nearly complete. Remember when people used to line up at ATMs to get cash on weekends? I haven’t seen anyone use the ATM at the newspaper office in years.
It’s also been ages since I’ve seen anyone ask for cash back in a checkout line. (Which reminds me: Walmart please fix the “cash back” prompts on your self-checkout machines. They are dim and illegible, and I have to stoop down to read them.)
The other day I was having dinner with my sister at a local fast-casual restaurant. When we finished, I asked the waitperson for a check.
“If it’s cash, you pay me,” she said. “If it’s credit card or debit card, you pay that,” she said, pointing to what looked like a small tablet computer sitting on the edge of the table.”
“Uh-oh,” I thought.
As always, I go into a mild panic when asked to interact with technology in a way that’s new to me. Heck, I don’t even like changing passwords. Getting a “time to change your password” prompt is the only time I say bad words.
Anyway, I started fiddling with the self-pay device in the restaurant and made it to the “tap, swipe or insert” phase of the transaction. When tapping the card against the device didn’t work, I looked for the slot to insert it.
“Here, let me have the card,” my sister said with slight exasperation.
Her confidence quickly waned as she couldn’t find the slot either. Finally, I noticed an illuminated indention on the side and inserted my card there. Eureka!
Recently I was having a credit card issue, and I called the toll-free number on the back of the card. After interacting with an AI voice, I was told that talking to a real person would require a wait, and I was given the option of beginning a text conversation.
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“No, thanks,” I said, happy to be kept on hold for six minutes before a flesh-and-blood customer-service assistant came on the line.
When something goes wrong with a credit card, I want to speak to a real person, preferably one that understands Appalachian English.
At the end of our fruitful conversation, he said, “Thanks for your 37 years as a cardholder.”
Human courtesy and connection: That’s what I’m talking about.
And that’s what’s being lost in our modern, digital world.
Email Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com.