Put it on the Card

For my recent vacation, I got Travelers Cheques. I can tell you that these aren't used very much anymore; just getting them (from the bank) took over an hour and they were a novelty in every single place I used them, except one small gas station in Bozeman, MT, staffed by it's likely owner -- old enough to have sat behind Moses in 3rd grade. For every person other than him, I was the first to introduce the checkout clerk to the hows-to-cash a traveler's check.

My wife and I took separate vacations. Yes, we love each other, but we have a lot of kids and they have various needs and we can't afford to take each of them on all the vacations. Some kids are defending their three-time world championship in a major international competition and some want to go mining and rock-hounding in the sticks. I stayed with family and got traveler's checks. She stayed in hotels and needed a card. Instead of Cheques she put her vacation budget on a MasterCard "Gift Card" (that's what it says where your name would normally be) at the bank (it took considerably less time to process...).

Since we don't use credit, and are on a strict budget, and since she needed something other than cash and since the hotels & rental car agencies want some sort of card, she went with the traveler's card. It worked pretty well, but alas, she brought it back with about $10 on it. So tonite we went out for a dessert-date, where we get some sort of dessert and chat for an hour. We settled on Frostee's and parking in a strip-mall parking lot. In the drive-thru lane I handed over the card, trying to siphon the last bit from it and I felt really self-conscious, feeling like I was doing something wrong and worrying about being caught. You see, I've told all my friends how we don't use credit -- I have a debit card but I only use it for gas, seriously that's it, all cash and online-bill-pay otherwise. All my friends know about my aversion to credit and so I was feeling like a guy in a porn shop stealing glances to make sure his church buddies don't notice his distinctive car parked in front. Of course, it wasn't a credit card, but it looked like one and felt like one and I felt weird using it.

It was a very odd feeling, but I'm grateful for it. Back when we first started *having* to wear seat belts they felt kind of funny. Now I feel completely naked without my seatbelt fastened. Handing over a card is like that, too, but in reverse. Having to part with actual cash, and not just hand over a card that is quickly returned imperceptibly lighter makes my purchasing decisions better. No longer is it a limitless well from which I can draw money. I can see how much I have. I have $20. I can buy ONE Star Destroyer or TWO DX Avairs. That's it. Or, I can decide maybe I don't really need ANOTHER disc and would like to eat at Quiznos and buy my wife a rose on my way home. I could stick to my budget on a card; of course. But, who does? Really, you do? Okay, you are the exception then. The rest of the people in America got a big problem, though, me included.