Credit Card Machines are Conquering the World

"Paper or plastic" used be indicative of a query regarding the style of sack you would prefer for your groceries. Now when you hear the phrase, they're asking if you have cold, hard cash, or a thin strip of plastic to run through their lifeless credit card machine.

This is not a complaint against credit card machines. It’s a complaint against a loss of culture. Gone are the days of friendly banter with the owner as you pay for your supper, and forgotten are the times when currency was recognized as a symbol of our personal equity. Today, you either have the value in cold numbers, or you don't. There is no idle gossip with the owner; just a quick hello to some clerk who'd wish you'd shut up already. Paper or Plastic? Feed the ubiquitous Credit Card Machine.

There are few places one can go where these credit card machines haven't spread. Even small mom-and-pop shops have picked them up, robbing the atmosphere of its human qualities and adding a cybernetic touch.

Cash may be the wisest way to pay, but credit card machines make things so much easier! Its far less complicated, after all, to feed your credit card through the machine twelve times, until it registers, and then attach your signature to a strip of paper which will be sent to a bank hundreds of mile away, where you will finally be sent a bill for $12.99 that you'll pay in three weeks. You haven't actually spent your own money yet, so if you aren't careful you'll then feel as if you still have it and go spend more. Then, when the bill arrives, you'll wonder why you threw away your paycheck.

On second thought, maybe credit card machines aren't robbing us of our culture. Perhaps they're just an outlandish enough part of some larger phenomena sweeping across the world that they'll integrate themselves into an entirely new tradition: one of ferocious debt and poorly handled funds.

Paper or Plastic, you ask? Paper, please.