As a MWDG I deal with cash often. It ends up in the bank of course. But theres gap times I have cash on my body. And occasionally I pay for things with that cash. But whenever people see cash fucking money they act like they seen a ghost.
1
A few nights ago, I was at this raggedy ass establishment that didn’t have Benjamins stocked in their Ticket In Ticket Out (TITO) machine. I put $300 into a slot and won $459. When I inserted my ticket into the TITO kiosk, that SOB spat out $759 worth of 1s/5s/20s at me like I was an exotic dancer. There were so many bills stuffed in my wallet that I couldnt close it. I felt paranoid driving around with a big ass wallet. I did’t want to get pulled over and get patted down by the police. They would’ve certainly felt it and likely took it. I didn’t want to be a victim of civil forfeiture! So, I went to Walgreens to spend some of that money. I got some medical stuff for my dad and a few groceries.
I walked up to the checkout lane and spread $350 worth of 1s/5s/20s like a fan on the counter.
Sassy cashier: Chile, it’s kinda late at night to be spreading out money like that!
Me: It’s that kind of neighborhood here? I made sure to look up this municipality on City Data before coming. It said this area is high in income and low in crime.
Sassy cashier: rolls eyes Hon, any place can get robbed this time of the night!
Me: Yeah you’re right, it -is- 3am…I guess my judgment is a little off.
2
Ather time my wallet was bloated with 1s/5s/20s, I was at Noodles and Company. When I whipped out my wallet to pay for my food, a couple standing behind me in line giggled at me.
3
I once ate some pasta at this bougie bar. I whipped out a Benjamin to pay for my dinner. Man sitting next to me stops eating and talking for a second. And he sneaked additional glances at me until I left.
4
I handed a sweaty $20 bill to the finance person after sportsball practice for the practice fee. They give me a WTF look and I was like LOL “it’s for practice!”. They were like “um there’s venmo”
5
I pay for my dinner with a Benjamin. Friends bitched that I should’ve paid for theirs too. I was actually kind of broke, despite having a Benjamin. But they felt entitled to that money.
I see very little need for cash, I virtually never have cash at home and don’t take it with me. I just got back from 10 days in Mexico City with my family and the four of us used less than USD$150 in pesos, everything else was on credit cards.
I associate carrying large amounts of cash around with having “cash intensive” businesses where you don’t want to deposit the proceeds because you aren’t reporting the income [fully] to the tax authorities. And also paying employees and suppliers in cash for similar reasons.
Except for old people who are doing it out of habit (and whose second choice for payment is writing a check!), ALL the people I know who are carrying around rolls of cash are not going to want to explain the source of the cash to either the tax authorities or the benefits ones or both.
Aren’t the casinos all now pretty much cashless? I haven’t been to one in 28 years, but I have heard it was all chips and cards now.
Cash in my pocket is starting to feel like money already spent. I often pay with $20s and don’t ask for any change back smaller than a $5 (generally at places where you would or could tip).
There are numerous kwik e marts in my new neighborhood. While they all accept credit or debit cards, they pass the processing and other fees directly on to the customer. It can be considerably cheaper to just pay cash.
Even though I generally have some cash in my pocket (usually 20-40 bucks), it’s pretty easy these days to tell the panhandlers that I am carrying no cash.
I’m waiting for one of them to give me his Venmo handle.
If you want to see weirdness about cash, check out social media.
MAGAoids and other subterraneans are freaking out about an imminent cashless society, which will force them to have implantable nano-commerce microchips which will also allow them to be remotely vaccinated and confined to 15-minute cities.
Or something like that.
Hopefully most cashiers can still handle both cash and cashless alternatives. There hasn’t been any repetition of a long-ago experience I had at K-Mart, where I was paying for something, handed the clerk my credit card, and to my astonishment she began reading out the credit card numbers as she entered them into her system manually. Fortunately I stopped her before she got too far, as I glanced behind me and noticed that the checkout line looked like visiting day at Folsom.
No, casinos are the last bastion of a cash life along with marijuana dispensaries.
In fact, when I come back from Las Vegas and I have cash, dive bars and dispensaries are where I spend it. I have an online only bank account so can’t deposit it.
Did anyone read Heinlein’s book I Will Fear No Evil? There is a scene in which the protagonist goes clothes shopping at a very high end store, and when her selections have been made hauls out a HUGE amount of cash to pay for it. The employee she has been dealing with is a bit horrified, saying he doesn’t think their establishment is set up to take cash. Customer is unwilling to set up a temporary account for credit, and the employee works something out. He takes the cash and pays for the clothes on his own account with the store.
When Amazon wanted to build several new facilities in Philadelphia, they wanted to build a cashless store. A bunch of people on city council objected. It is now the law that any business operating in Philadelphia city limits must accept cash. IMO This is a good law.
Before the new minor-league ballpark opened in Wichita a few years ago, it was widely announced that it would be cashless. The first few weeks produced small amounts of bitching, but now it’s routinely accepted.
No, because Philadelphia has besides a number of homeless people a large percentage of people who either can not qualify for a credit or debit card, or cannot afford a credit or debit card. To not accept cash as payment is de facto class discrimination