This has been our pre-weekend weekend. Both of us have stuff to do on the actual weekend so this is the relaxytime. Better that way I think. If you relaxytime when all the world relaxytimes, you find yourself in winduppytime instead because the entire population of ancient Babylon has simultaneously decided NOW is the time to chill.
Being zzzt a tiny bit out of sync with all the zzt the ones who have to be weekend on weekend because job or school or life or unexamined pattern shouts at them… It’s a nice place to be. We went to yoga at Lunarwave at 9.30am on a Friday and there was an empty mat. Beforehand we went to the land of Fika where the hipsters howl, and I was able to order immediately. I don’t like Fika because I think if I was to offer to pay with a ten pound note they would look at me as if money didn’t exist and then tell me in a supercilious tone that they don’t take cash. I have gone without coffee many times when my destination coffee house sports my least favourite phrase: “Proud to not take cash”. I usually pay with cards but “proud to restrict customer options and actually be much lazier about how we close down at the end of the day – oh and we are entirely electricity reliant now. And we are proud of that.” No. You’re a bunch of cunts. Zzt.
I’m sure I’m out of synch here too with how things are going, and I’m fine with that. We are running headlong into a situation that Japan will avoid. It’s only actually the south of this country thankfully so far that have been taken in with the “cash makes more work and we can pretend we don’t take cash cos it might be dirty but actually it saves us cashing up” routine. Up north you still have to ask if it’s okay to pay with card, and long may that continue. It’s so lazy to be cashless, but you can save on staff costs and everyone is greedy. And we the consumer, we aren’t helping cos now we can wave our card like some magical wand. And then it doesn’t feel like giving that capital we worked so hard for. Often the figure isn’t even discussed. But we wave at the boop and the boop takes our money and gives a tiny percentage to someone who is absolutely guaranteed to be an absolute total complete and utter unsalvageable cunt. Boop. Boop. Boop. Pumping up the cock.
We aren’t all millionaires. But we all like the feeling of waving the wand. It feels like magic. And that tiny percentage goes to someone we would punch if they tried to kiss us. And that person gets more and more influential cos there are millions and millions of us. And they can put a tiny tiny bit of their revenue into propagating the “cash is dirty” bullshit.
Then the machine goes down. If you haven’t got cash when the electricity goes, you’re on goodwill as happens at festivals. It happened to me in Paris. Local venue blew the power in all the local streets for a good hour and a half at ten pm. I had just eaten dinner in a local bistro after rushing in some ridiculously long plastic tubes. I can’t remember the name of the venue now. I hadn’t eaten all day, got a good quick bistro meal that ended up being a free meal cos I couldn’t wait for their internet to go back up. I thought I’d go back over the course of the event, but life never took me near again, but I offered them cash. No cash accepted. Fuckem. That’s it way of it.
Don’t take cash out of the equation. It’s like the fire alert at Grenfell telling everyone to stay in their home cos the doors and sprinklers have been assessed by experts and deemed to be all you need to save you from death by fire.
The new smart system tells you it has everything covered because it has been built by idiots. Anyone trying to muscle in on cash territory is just doing it for the percentage, of course. Cash has existed for thousands of years and lifetime after lifetime because it fucking works. It’s just more hubris going cashless. The results of cashlessness might not set a fire in our lifetime, but it WILL burn and it will burn nasty. Those who made the decision to be “proud to be cashless” will be examined in schoolrooms as the short term idiots they are. I’ll still go to cashless places, sure, I’m part of it, I’m just pointing things out.
But… I will walk away no matter how desperate I am for coffee from anyone who says “proud to be cashless”. I’ve annoyed multiple friends with that. “Proud to be cashless! *smileyface* “
You might as well tattoo “self satisfied short term lazy greedy pig trying to manipulate you and proud of it *smiley face* ” on your forehead.
Nah I won’t fund your lazy business. Nor will I give my percentage to the guaranteed extremist who gets that percentage for making an app six years ago and now has been fooled by capitalism into thinking he’s a special individual.
Anyway. Carry cash. Be nice. Remember that the people who don’t take the cash from you are employees so there’s no point being mean to them even though you know their boss is a lazy short termist thinker trying to make things go away, absolutely immune to the understanding that their actions are deeply negative to freedom and progress. Still, keep carrying cash. And next time the homeless guy stops you you won’t look helpless and say “I only have cards”. And you can give to the busker who doesn’t have an izettle and actually might need to get that rock of crack or that homeless shelter or that meal and who are we to judge? At the bottom cash is the only option. At the top, no cash is strangulation. We are still ok but we aren’t using it enough to make sure we will continue to be ok. And that’s as much the fault of the magic wand wavers as it is the short term idiots who are “proud to be lazy”.
AlBarclay 