07.13.07 - Money Is For Poor People

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Money Is For Poor People

Did you know that if you use cash, you're a mongoloid caveman?

At least you are according to a credit card commercial that's been assailing the airwaves lately. The company in question offers magical credit card wands that pay for your purchases with nary a wrinkle of one's brow. Whee! It makes you feel like a wizard, if wizards only had the power to accumulate crippling debt.

The commercial shows us a typical workaday morning in the hustling, bustling City. Which City? One that has apparently armed every single bodega and newsstand with NSA-level recognition technology. We see working men and women using their Magic Credit Wands to pay for their breakfasts and newspapers, swiping their Mystical Money Amulets and going on their merry ways.

Then, horror strikes! Some fat, bald asshole tries to pay for his coffee and donut with cash. Cash! What is this, Ethiopia?! How did he get past our Peasant Detection Systems?

The background music screeches to a halt. Everyone in the donut shop eyes Cueball as if he'd just dropped trou and squeezed out a deuce on the tile floor. The cashier takes his filthy, snot-encrusted money and pushes his breakfast back to him with as few fingers as possible, like she's disposing of a dirty diaper. The music resumes, and so does the steady flow of cashless commerce, while this troglodyte skulks off to a dark alley somewhere to rape puppies.

This commercial cracks me up. And by "cracks me up," I mean, "infuriates me with a white-hot blinding hatred". Because it runs completely counter to my own daily breakfast experience as an urban working person--and, I imagine, the daily experiences of 90% of my fellow urban working people.

New York has many things in abundance, and one of these abundant commodities is Rich Lazy Assholes. These are people who are willing to pay pay top dollar just so they don't have to wait on line with the rest of the poor schmucks, whether that's shopping for groceries or getting a kidney transplant.

And despite living in a city filled with Rich Lazy Assholes, I have never seen one of these Magic Credit Wands, or a machine capable of reading them. Not even once. The closest I've come to witnessing this kind of commercial interaction is the time I watched a contractor punch the shit out of a Home Depot Self-Checkout Machine that ate his 20 dollar bill.

As for people paying for their breakfast with credit cards...let me paint you a Word Picture of a New York morning commute.

Listen: It's morning. You don't want to be awake. You just had to fight your way into the city, through train derailments and jackknifed tractor trailers. You emerge from the subway station and are greeted with a blast of bus exhaust, mixed with just a soupcon of stale human urine. You trudge your way down the block, pushing past gawking tourists and inconsiderate assholes walking seven in tandem.

You make your way to your favorite deli. It's your favorite because it's right across the street from your office and the bagels are only occasionally moldy. You order your breakfast and coffee and wait patiently for their preparation while your stomach churns. Then you get on line and wait to pay. And while you wait, you think about all the bullshit you're gonna have to do at work that day. And you think about how unimportant all the dumb shit you do in your job is in the grand scheme of things, but how you can't possibly fuck up or else you're gonna get fired and starve.

And then you look at the front of the line, and you see that it's not moving because some asswipe is trying to pay for a $3.50 buttered bagel and large coffee with a fucking credit card.

This week alone, my breakfast duties were delayed three consecutive mornings for just this reason. All three times, it was some idiot who was talking on a cell phone at the exact same moment they strode to the cash register, which made the process even more laborious. Because in each instance, the cashier had to inform this Busy Cashless Person that there is a $5 minimum on credit card purchases (and I'm sure that this particular deli is not alone in having that rule).

And twice, the Busy Cashless Person had one credit card denied, and had to fish around their purse/wallet for another one. How fucked is your credit if you can't get a $5 purchase approved? At that point, just become a hermit, because you'll never be able to buy a home or a car. You won't even be able to get a god damn library card.

One morning, it was a young college student from Staten Island who was trying to impress on the person on the other end of her cell phone that the Verrazano Bridge toll is $9, not $4.50. "It's only $4.50 when I use my EZ-Pass!" she said over and over, "how am I not making this clear?!" This debate was so important that she missed the cashier's frequent reminders of the $5 credit card rule.

You know what happens when I pay with cash? I pay and I go. I don't have to unsheathe a card from my wallet. I don't have to hope that the magnetic strip works with this particular machine. I don't have to flash ID (unless they start mass-marketing the Dollaroid). I don't have to wait for a receipt to print out and sign it. With cash, I'm good to go. Unless the full faith and credit of the U.S. Treasury is suddenly worthless, in which case we've all got bigger problems than paying for a bagel and coffee.

* * *

Confidential to the Scam Artist on the 6 Train

I admit that I sighed heavily when you began to speak. At the end of a long day, I wish to be left alone. When I hear a loud raspy voice bellow out on the subway, "Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, sorry to disturb you...", I take that as a signal that I've lost any hope of a peaceful commute home. But sighing is rude, so I apologize.

Your story sounds compelling. You just moved here from Bennington, Vermont. Why, I've heard of that place! It sounds rustic and New England-y. Tell me more!

You have a wife and child? So do I! What a coincidence! There aren't many men who have wives and children in the greater metropolitan area. Surely, we share a bond.

You've just been offered a job with full benefits...offering $21.50 an hour? I've never heard of an hourly job that gives you benefits, so that must be quite a sweet gig.

Wait, there's a wrinkle. You need to get to Jamaica? Queens, I assume. Okay, just take the J train.

You need to get to a bank in Jamaica to give them $400? Why does the bank need $400? Isn't the bank the place where people put their money?

Oh, you have $373. That means you only need $27 "for the opportunity of a lifetime." I'm still unclear about what that opportunity is, and how the bank ties into the job.

See, if I didn't know any better, I'd be skeptical of your story. Because usually the kind of people who ask for specific, odd amounts of money are junkies who are trying to gather up enough dough for a fix. And no, I don't think your scratchy green sweater and yellow complexion makes you look like a junkie.

Also, saying that you need a small amount of money to secure a larger sum of money, that sounds suspiciously like an internet scam. You know, the kind that litter people's email inboxes millions of times a day, where scumbags pretend to be African dignitaries and whatnot.

You know what? I wouldn't get mad at people who don't give you money. I hear you muttering about how people give money to "winos and junkies", but not to you. This is not a way to endear yourself to potential donors.

Buck up, man. Maybe you'll find another subway car, one full of complete morons who've never used a computer. Then I'm sure you'll score big!

Posted 07.13.07 12:01am * Permalink