There’s no app for that
It’s always nice to get a check in the mail. It’s a sure way to improve any day, even the Monday of a week promising cold, rain, sleet, and a dozen inches of snow.
But that day was bright and the next dawned even brighter. Inspired, I rummaged for a much disused checkbook and pad of deposit slips, filled one out, tucked it in my pocket and set out on foot to enjoy the day and make a deposit.
Time was, and not that long ago, that would have comprised one of the most routine of domestic duties. For decades, every other Saturday morning sometime between 9 o’clock and noon, I’d grab a pen, jot down some numbers, scribble an endorsement and head off, on foot or in a succession of automobiles to kill a little time doing a little banking.
All in all it was a reasonably pleasant little fiscal ritual. Every other week, the same designated amount was posted to our account and the remainder delivered back to me in coin and crisp currency for the purchase of incidentals throughout the following fortnight. It was a small, but tangible reminder that I’d done my work and been paid for it. Whatever satisfaction that was to come was well earned and rightfully mine.
I don’t go to the bank much anymore. It’s probably 10 years ago or more that I received a tersely worded email from corporate financial that all of us troglodytes still collecting our pay in the form of a printed check no longer had any option but to join the 21st century and provide the proper account and routing numbers to facilitate direct deposit. My money would be going to my bank without me acting as intermediary. Drawing one’s pay by check became as unlikely as collecting it in gold doubloons – with taxes withheld in drachmas and den arii.
With no check to deposit, there was little reason to go to the bank. The week’s pocket money was just added to the total of the check written on the weekly trip to the grocery store -- until that check was replaced by the swipe and the beep of a plastic card.
And with the ubiquity of “the card” and its computerized cousins – online bill pay, personal fund transfer, and automatic withdrawal – not just the bank, but the U.S. Post Office disappeared from my weekend itineraries. No need for stamps, no need for envelopes, no need to find a pen or keep track of the balance – just tap a key and it was done.
How efficient. How productive.
Still, this morning’s sun was warm and a fresh breeze carried scents of early spring. The walk was pleasant and the line at the teller’s window was predictably short. Her smile was bright, I smiled back. We bantered a bit about the weather, as good Minnesotans are wont to do, transacted a bit of bank business and she promised to take care in looking after my money until I had need of it. A brief farewell and I went home by a meandering route as befitted a pleasant morning in early spring with a blizzard forecast 48 hours in the future.
Of course I could have tapped the app on the phone I carry in my pocket, snapped photos of the check, front and back, and dispatched ti digital info to the virtual vault somewhere in the cloud in a fraction of the time.
And what better could I have done with all that time I’d filled with smiles and sun and the scents of spring?
Darned if I know…