feared the situation could get ugly.
If you have ever been to a grocery store the day before Thanksgiving, I don’t need to describe the scene. The checkout lines were long but moved quickly. Most folks paid by swiping a credit or debit card; I had mine in my hand ready to go.
Then the woman ahead of me pulled out a checkbook. I was surprised at how odd it seemed. It wasn’t that long ago -- in old-people years, anyway – that writing checks was the norm. Now it was like seeing a covered wagon on the freeway.
As she wrote a check and dug around in her purse for her ID, I began to worry that people in the long line behind me might think that I was the one holding things up. It’s a little like being stuck behind a slow-moving car on a narrow road -- you desperately want whoever is behind the grill that is filling your rearview mirror to understand that you are not the problem, it’s the person ahead of you.
Still waiting on the check-writer, I scrunched over to the side as much as I could, my shoulder wedged between display boxes of Mars bars and M&Ms, so that others could see that I was not the holdup and to offer a clearer line-of-sight to whoever might be making a video of the hapless dinosaur who was writing a check.
As I looked behind me, I was surprised to see that most were busy talking or texting and apparently hadn’t noticed that the line had stopped moving.
Was I being paranoid? Probably. I have my reasons.
You see, not too many years ago I was the one writing the check. Ever resistant to change, I had stubbornly vowed that the people who insisted on making progress would take my checkbook away when they pried it from my cold, dead fingers. I kept it up until I began to suspect they would like to do just that.
After deciding to join those whom I apparently could not beat, I took pride in being part of the “let’s keep things moving, people” gang.
I don’t want to brag, but I got pretty darn good at swiping my credit or debit card at checkout; I hardly even had to glance down to see whether the little magnetic strip was facing the right way. I later mastered the act of inserting the card in the reader. I could easily go either way. Yeah me!
Now here I was zipping along in line with the other grownups, and I wasn’t going back to the kids’ table. I was not going to let anyone think that I was some prehistoric check writer. I worked my shoulder even further into the displays of Mars bars and M&Ms. “See? It’s not me,” I silently said to the dozens of people ignoring me.
The check-writer finally headed out of the store toward her covered wagon, er, car and it was my turn.
I swiped my card. “Transaction declined,” the screen told me. I tried once more and then decided to pivot to my next-best move, gracefully and effortlessly inserting the card into the machine. “Transaction declined.”
“That machine has been acting up today,” the cashier said. “Just tap the card.”
Tap? That was not in my repertoire. I caught myself before I accidentally took a trip in the wayback machine to the days when I would whack the top of the TV to keep the picture from rolling. Thank God I did not whack the card. She took the card and gently tapped in the general vicinity of the screen. “Transaction approved.”
By now, those behind me had begun to realize the line had not moved in a while. “It wasn’t me,” I muttered, as I headed out to my covered wagon, er, car.
I later remembered there had been a little notice included in the envelope with my new card. It said something about how “contactless paying” was now an option. With a little practice, I was able to add tap to my checkout routine and felt like I had once again earned my place at the grownups’ table.
I later shared this story with a long-time friend who is my age.
“I pay for everything with my phone,” she said. “I even use Venmo to pay the guy who mows my yard.”
Venmo? Help. Me.
