You can bank on it!

Once upon a time, I worked like an "average" person. I had regularly scheduled hours. I had a car, credit cards, bills to pay … the works. And I actually attempted to occasionally balance my check book.

That of course was the first mistake. I invariably ended up going over limits, being late, stressing out over lack of funds and generally pissing of anyone who wanted the to call themselves creditor. So I found a very effective solution to this. I simplified. I pretty much got rid of regularly scheduled work hours, cars, credit cards, bills … the works. And most importantly, I stopped trying to balance my check book.

My life has been so much easier in many ways since I did this, and the truth is I rarely am late or running over limits these days. Granted this is primarily because I don’t actually do anything or spend any money, but … details, details. This system would actually be highly effective if it weren’t for one sadly necessary demon.

Banks.

Despite the world’s effort to make everything cashless, we somehow cannot do anything without cash. But the only way to effectively have this cashless cash, we need to have some sort of bank account, or be willing to pay lots more cash to convert our cashless cash into cash. The average bank conveniently offers "free" bank accounts to store our cashless cash, as long as we deposit all our cashless earning in the bank cashlessly (i.e. electronically). Or maintain a cashless balance. Or any other of a slew of possible cashless ways of doing things. The key usually being that the less paperwork for the bank the better (i.e. electronically). Of course if we fail to cashlessly do these things, the "free" account will start costing us a cashless fee for not being cashless.

The other day I went to use my plastic card that is supposed to be a replacement for cash so that I can properly do things cashlessly, and was told the card would not work. Not that the amount was denied but that the card itself was cardona non grata. I just assumed that it was a physical issue with the card, since it was old and ragged having often been used for cashless cash exchange. That same day I received an email from Netflix, telling me that they tried to cashlessly get the cash that I promised them to movielessly watch movies, and they were also told my card was cardona non grata.

Knowing that my cash balance in my cashless account was sufficient enough to cashlessly pay for movieless movies (I was completely sure of this because I never bothered to balance my check book), I decided to call the number on the back of the card. I get a friendly customer service man who does not actually work for the bank but for the makers of this cashless cash card, and he kindly informs me that for reasons he is unable to determine, they shut off my card. All I needed to do was actually walk into the nearest bank location and all would be well in my cashless world.

So I go to the bank, sit down with a friendly customer service lady, who kindly calls the same folk that I called to find out why my card was shut off only to be kindly told that it is because I have not physically made a cash transaction in the bank in over a year, so my account has been suspended. All I needed to do is to take some cash out, or put some cash in … physically … and my cashless card would again be able to cashlessly access my cash.

Let me get this straight. To ensure I follow the bank’s demand to do everything electronically, I need to do it physically once a year. Despite the fact that I now no longer HAVE to do it physically thanks to the bank’s efforts to ensure I do everything electronically.

And we wonder why the world economy is collapsing. Long live the mattress!!