A Little Cash In Your Pocket

Cash. Remember the stuff?

Not long ago I went to the Apple Store to buy a case for my iPhone. For those of you who have never been in an Apple Store, the place is pretty much what moviemakers back in the 1970s thought the future would look like, except just about everybody keeps their clothes on. It’s filled with huge pale oak tables covered with iMacs, iPhones, iPads, and a bunch of other iCrap that I probably couldn’t afford, even if I had any idea what it was.

I stumbled around the store for a while, wending my way through a crowd of self-assured 30-something customers who were scientifically evaluating their potential purchases by taking duck-face selfies and watching Youtube videos of fat guys falling off ladders. Eventually I found the case I wanted and looked around for the check-out counter.

Important advisory note – Apple Stores don’t have check-out counters.

I stood there, clutching a small wad of cash and feeling iPathetic, until a young woman in a green t-shirt and khaki shorts walked up and said, “Welcome to the Apple Store. Can I help you?”

“You sure can,” I said. “Where do I pay for this?”

“Right here,” she said. When I tried to hand her my money, she whipped out her iPhone, smiled at me with the exact look of tolerant pity she would give a toddler with a crayon up his nose, and said, “No. Put that away and get out your phone.”

I’m not exactly sure what happened after that, but I think my phone collected a thumbprint and a DNA sample, moved all my assets into a no-load mutual fund, and paid for the iPhone case, because eventually she said, “Ok you’re all set. You’ll get a text message with your receipt.”

That whole experience really clashed with my lifelong belief that I should always have a few bucks in my pocket. I don’t recall a specific training session on the topic, but I’m sure it probably came along somewhere between:

“Ew, take that out of your mouth!”

and:

“When you pick up your date, if her dad’s cleaning his gun you better damn well get her home early. And for God’s sake, remember to have a few bucks in your pocket.”

When I was growing up, I’m not sure my parents even had a credit card. They might have had a gas station card for convenience, because a single fill-up could cost you as much as $7. And now that I think of it, they probably had a Sears card too, because just about everything we had was the Sears alternative to what we actually wanted.

These days you could go months or years without ever handling actual money. Click a single button online, and two days later you’ll receive an Amazon box the size of a minivan containing twenty large packaging air bags and four AAA batteries. When you sell your gently used Yurt Kit on eBay, you get your Yurt money via PayPal, which would probably be just as good as cash if you had the faintest clue how to use it.

The newest smart phones even have facial recognition technology, which means that all you have to do is look hungry and the phone will spring for a pizza and a couple of beers.

So cash may not be completely obsolete yet, but it sure does look like it’s becoming irrelevant. Before long we’ll be bypassing money altogether and going to a completely new system of commerce. I wonder how many goats we’re looking at to buy that new, improved Yurt Kit?

Coming soon – Bitcoin and Other Cool Ways to Get Rid of Your Money Without Actually Setting It On Fire.

If you’re as baffled by current technology as I am, go to iPathetic.com and tell me your story. With any kind of luck, I’ll use your idea in a future column – giving you as much or little credit for your cluelessness as you want.

A Little Cash In Your Pocket

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