Have your reactions to things ever changed? Mine have, you may be too young to notice any difference yet. I’ve developed these certain reactions over time to things, almost like an allergic reaction. When I pay for something using cash, and the cashier moves to hand me back my change ever notice how they always place a paper receipt on top of that change? That’s when my reached out hand retracts back quickly, and both hands raise in the air like I’m under being placed under arrest, shaking my head I say, “No Receipt!” I hate to be rude but I don’t like receipts, is it possible I’ve become allergic to them? Everyone has their quirks so cut me some slack here. I simply detest receipts, large or small. There are only limited circumstances when I’ll accept a receipt. One is when I purchase a high ticket item but then they always tuck the receipt inside a folder of warranty information for what I just purchased. There’s a thing known as “buyer remorse”, [please look that up] which accompanies all large ticket item purchases. In a case like this one is lucky to be handed just one single slip of paper. At grocery stores they always want to hand me my receipt and I ask them politely “just drop it in any bag”. Every once in awhile I will check a grocery receipt, but that’s a rare day indeed. Another instance for when it pays to accept a receipt is anytime I dine out at a restaurant/bar. Back in the day these establishments had a reputation for having dishonest waiters and waitresses who would steal customer credit card numbers and do some really bad things to someone’s bank account, so I will accept these receipts only discarding them once I’ve checked it against my bank ledger online. In fact, I’ll take every piece of paper from a restaurant and bar home so that I have a record of exactly what I ordered in this way they can’t make stuff up, charging me for something I never ordered. Employee dishonesty truly sucks and causes patrons to spend time on something they shouldn’t ever need think about.

Still, I dream of one day we’ll be a “receipt-less society”, [sounds like a song title], one in which no one will need to carry proof that they paid [for something]. Given online banking, together with a bank that’s happy to spearhead any protest for me, why do I need 90% of these receipts anyway? Especially since I have proof of purchase for everything via my bank site or just by accessing their phone app? How about those manufacturer warranty cards, have you ever filled one out and sent it in? I can remember doing this maybe once, and they never even wrote back to say “thank you”. 🙂 I’m so busy dealing with setting something up that comes with a manufacturer’s warranty card [to become fully operative] I don’t have time to even think about a day in the future when it will break. Does that make me an optimist? Receipts and other printed proofs of purchase seem like dinosaurs these days, just like old washed-up politicians, mostly useless but still they seem to hang around. Speaking of dinosaurs yet to go extinct how about sugary soft drinks, Sweet Tea, and glazed donuts? I can’t believe some people still consume them but then these are probably the same folks who have sales receipts in a big pile on their desks… Meh. 🙂