But people are still paying with checks and I'm going to keep ranting until it stops. Is it not 2006? Which makes this the 21st Freaking Century, yeah? Because I feel like I should be stocking up on powdered wigs and knee breeches when I go to the store. When we got calculators, we stopped using abaci (yeah, I looked it up to be sure), didn't we? Cars replaced horse drawn carriages. CDs knocked out lps and tapes. Video killed the radio star, then was subsequently killed by reality tv and we all rolled with it. So why in the world are people still writing checks???
I go to Target at lunch to pick up laundry detergent on sale. I have three items at checkout, go the shortest line, and end up watching streams of people with dozens of items zip out the store because the woman in front of me in line wants to write a check and didn't have the decency to have her bank preprint her license number on it.
I go to the gas station next and get in the shortest line again. Again, cars are whipping in and out while I sit and wait for the lady (again, it's the fairer sex that perpetrates this crime 99% of the time) with the the "Marriage = Man + Woman" bumpersticker surrounded by red, white and blue ribbon magnets (direct correllation between excess of homophobic patriotism and mental defectiveness?) to walk up to the booth with her checkbook to buy her gas and smokes.
Then, as if that weren't enough, I need to stop at the grocery store on the way home. Why am I stuck in line this time? Wait for it ... because the woman I got behind forgot her checkbook in the car and had to walk out to get it, then walk back in, rejoin the line, then open it, find the next available check under the fifty carbons, the write it out, then sloooooowly tear it out ...
Look, next time you're walking past your bank with your checkbook, do me a favor, take $50 or so out and carry it the f@ck with you. Here's a thing I like to do, carry a credit card that pays 5% back on purchases you make at grocery stores and gas stations, pay it in full every month, and have them send you a bunch of money every couple months to buy yourself something nice.