Tap Dancing

Listening to the radio the other day, when a solo, Clayton spoke up about the person at his local Tim Horton's laughed at him when he produced his debit card to pay for his morning coffee, then proceeded to insert the chip and punch in his password and so on.  "You don't have tap?" she scoffed.  The situation caused nothing more than an uncomfortable situation and subject matter for the morning show.  Normally, Clayton has an announce partner, Stacie, who was absent this day, so Clayton had the listening audience weigh in. 

Clayton described that he did not have the TAP feature on his debit card, adding that he felt it wasn't a necessary feature. Plus, he mentioned, it's way too easy for someone to steal your wallet and go on a spending spree.  I can't say that I don't agree, as that last part never even entered my mind.  Thank you Clayton for adding to my list of presently existing paranoia's. 😄 

Like Clayton, I resisted the TAP feature on my debit card for a very long time, finally succumbing to peer pressure when I began getting stuck behind slowpokes in checkout lines, who'd leisurely punch buttons searching for the right bank account and yada yada yada.  It was impatience that finally tipped the scales for me, a decision that I've come to regret, although I continue to use the TAP feature on my card.

I recall being a young boy, in seventh or eighth grade when another classmate, Jimmy, presented a news article in class.  The short article described how in the future, cash money would no longer be required, going on to explain that we'd all have plastic cards that would access our money.  The article also mentioned that the Devil was behind the science to bring about easier access to our monies, a factor that had our young minds oohing and aahing, at the time, but in retrospect, seems far-fetched.  The news article being little more than the rantings of some bible-loving crackpot.  The whole thing sounded like fantasy, as if a practice featured on an episode of Star Trek.  

Not to date myself, I do remember that at that time, if you hadn't visited the bank by Friday afternoon, you didn't have money for the weekend.  However, Jimmy's news article eventually did come to fruition and the article he shared during that show and tell from my youth always played out in the back of my mind.

In the beginning, I remember having my card in hand and making frequent visits to my bank machine, which at the time would administer money in $5 increments.  We, as a society, no longer had to race to the bank by 5pm on a Friday if we wanted to do shit on a Saturday.  Plus, for a lazy guy like me, having to stop at any bank or bank machine to grab cash of any amount, was enough of a deterrent to prevent me from spending money, until...

Using our debit cards to access our bank accounts at stores, became a game changer.  No longer having to make an effort to stop, get out of the car, punch in my info a bank machine, getting charged a whopping $2.50 to access my own money,  just to grab a few bucks...  I began spending a little more money, as I imagine happened with a lot of people.

If anyone recalls this progressive step forward, there were a number of setbacks.  We'd swipe our card and often, nothing would happen, as the magnetic strip on the back of our cards would wear out, forcing clerks to improvise.  One method was cladding the card with a plastic bag.  The practice worked sometimes, but other times the clerk would then add a strip of scotch tape to the card, swipe it through the machine then tear away the tape like a band-aid on a scraped knee, taking the magnetic strip along with the tape, rendering the bank card virtually useless.  Society, already past the visiting the bank stage, would often meander through life, now with a shitty card that didn't work and aggravating people in checkout lines forever thereafter.

For every step forward that science and creativity provides us, usually we're pushed two steps backward.  Banking's effort to push us forward, was not working, so the chip was added to our cards.  No longer did we have to rely on crossing our fingers in hopes of the strip working, now we just had to insert the chip and punch in our shit.  This progressed crowds a little quicker, but we were still stuck behind grandma who just didn't quite "understand how these new-fangled things work" and lineups continued to grow.

Ever notice how when things change in an effort to make one's experience easier, tends to be plagued with negatives.  Everyone fails to see the big picture in favour of the benefits they believe with come of the changes.

I resisted getting the TAP feature on my card for the longest time, not because I was afraid of some dastardly dick stealing my wallet and accessing my vast (un) fortune, but more afraid that I'd be that very dastardly dick, TAP dancing all over town buying shit without really thinking about the consequences.  You may notice that the money flows much easier when you remove the arduous task of punching in security codes 'n' shit.  Sometimes I won't even realize how much money has drained from my account, due to this ease.

In recent weeks, my attempts to get my car up and running, had me traipsing all about town buying this and that and tapping my card every time.  I'm afraid to look at my account balance.  Spending money is way too easy, nowadays, and the rising prices aren't helping matters any.  Government and all these banking institutions bombard us with the necessity to save money, yet they make it so difficult to do so with the cost of living rising on a daily, dare I say, hourly basis.  Shit's gotten so bad, I think back to that Show & Tell with Jimmy and his crazy news article and I can't help but think, maybe the Devil is responsible.  The financial anguish definitely feels like torture.