Paper or Electrons?

We still write checks. We still keep a record of the checks, deposits, withdrawals and debit transactions in a little check register. Once a month we balance the checkbook. Once a month the cancelled checks are returned to us. Well, they used to be. Our bank finally went over to the dreaded scanned image of the check. I know I should want to embrace this new technology. I know I should be happy about the energy savings and cost savings my bank claims to be achieving on my behalf. (It would be nice if those savings showed up as interest in my account, though!) And I know I should have already headed over to on-line bill paying. Think of the paper that would be saved.

I guess I am old fashioned. Or perhaps I am merely old. Gulp. But I like the pen to paper process of noting the items in my budget and writing out the checks. It feels very official, very real. I’m not a complete Luddite. I use our bank’s automated phone line to do some stuff. See? That’s very, ummm, late 20th century. Maybe it’s crazy, but it seems so much safer to seal and stamp an envelope; drop it into a metal box on the street corner; let people in uniforms pass it through high speed automated machines; load it into plastic crates in little trucks; deliver it to a mail room; have another automated machine slit open the envelope; then another person will type my payment into a computer, somewhere in the basement of a very tall building, in a far away city.

Isn’t that better than entering a few numerals into a little box on a web page and clicking pay? No? Oh dear.

Hey Chuck? Sweetie, I think we need to talk...