One of, actually, the only perk of working part time at a restaurant is the fact that at the end of every shift, I get to split tips with my fellow drones. Cash is not something that I usually carry. I’m a debit/credit card person. Don’t even ask about a checkbook, I haven’t even seen one in the past seven years. I’m all about the plastic. At least until they finally implant some microchip thingy in my arm, so all I have to do is wave my hand about in front of a scanner at the grocery store. It’s coming. Don’t think that it isn’t. We’re all going to look like idiots, frantically waving our arms back and forth to no one in particular.

Cash is a freeing thing. Especially since, like I said, I don’t carry it that often. It really does burn a hole in my pocket. It’s like the moment that I slip those greenbacks into my wallet, the wind starts blowing my hair back and the sky opens up and anything is possible. To quell this feeling, I often pull my wallet back out of my pants and flip through the cash I have on hand. Tends to bring the sobering reality that $17 isn’t really that freeing of an amount of money. That’s maybe two value meals at MCDonalds. Three, tops.

It’s not that I’m bemoaning the lack of cash in my life, really. It’s a good thing that I don’t have those sweet bills caressing my backside, pleading to be set free for something frivolous and unnecessary. I’d be flashing my wad all over town, making it rain at the local bookstore and such and such. Instead, I feel self-conscious when I pay for something with cash. Like I’m holding out on the guy at the convenience store. “Hey, I could buy a whole bunch of other shit here and make your life a little more worthwhile, maybe even enough that you’d have to ask me if I want a bag to carry it all out in, but I’m not going to. So there.”

And of course that’s a stupid feeling to have. But the transparency of cash is a nuance to me at this stage in my life. A welcome nuance, in many ways, but every positive has it’s negatives, I suppose.