By Jim Hagarty
1987
It was Saturday night on the Labour Day long weekend and I’d laboured outside all day until long after dark. I showered, changed my clothes and was ready for a nice, relaxing 11 p.m. supper out.
When, however, I opened my wallet, I discovered in there only four, unshiny pennies. Not one of my happiest discoveries.
So, I grabbed my money-machine card, jumped on my bike (my car has gone in for perpetual repair) and pedalled the half mile or so to my bank. For the first time since I’ve been using the handy services of the 24-hour cash-dispensing machine, a sign said the apparatus was closed. When, I wondered, can a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week service find the time to be closed?
So, there I was on the first day of a nice, warm, holiday weekend. My car locked up in the repair shop. My stash locked up in the bank. My stomach locked up in knots of famine. And a big four cents burning a hole in my pocket.
“I’ve had more fun than this,” I muttered to myself as I biked off in frustration into the dark and hungry night.
On the way back home, my brain searched my mind for solutions. It was too late to bug anyone for a loan and it’s hard to find any businesses in the city willing to cash a cheque at that time of night. My kitchen cupboards would make Mother Hubbard’s look like a supermarket shelf on opening day. I’d taken back my summer’s supply of pop bottles a few days before. A yard sale was out of the question.
And then I remembered it. The shiny, plastic card that arrived in the mail almost a year before. The first and only credit card I’ve ever had. The one I hoped I’d never have to use.
There isn’t much a person won’t do to keep from starving. I jumped off the bike, broke into the house, dug through my closets and came up with my meal ticket.
As I stood in line in the restaurant, beads of sweat broke out on my forehead. A hush had fallen over the diners, most of whom were glaring my way with accusing looks which suggested they knew I carried in my pocket nothing but four cents and a piece of plastic.
“Table for one?” enquired the smiling hostess as she walked my way.
“Yes, please,” I answered. And in a low voice, I added: “But could I speak to you alone, for a moment?”
Fifty condemning eyes followed us as the hostess and I huddled off to one side.
“Can I pay for my meal with this?” I whispered as I produced the shiny card.
“You most certainly can,” she said. But I was not convinced. And I wouldn’t be until she traded a plate of food for a plastic card and I walked out of the place a free man.
The meal came but I was not relaxed.
“I’m using a credit card to pay for this I told the waitress.” She nodded, smiled nervously and then hurried away.
When I’d sopped up the last drip of gravy with the bun and polished off the last drop of milk, I called for my bill. She brought it face down on a little tray like they do in all those fancy places and, wielding my card, I said, “Put it on this.”
As I expected they would, the waitress and the hostess held a conference near the cash register, looking at me, then at the card, then at me again. I knew, as I’d known all along, that behind the door to the kitchen was a big man named Bruno who was waiting to lumber over to my table, haul me by the shoulders out of my seat and enquire as to what type of wise person I thought I was. Anyway.
Instead the waitress started walking back to my table, to tell me, I was sure, about the some sort of mix up there seemed to be and my heart leapt into my throat.
“Sign here, please,” she said.
“Where?” I asked, and added: “I’ve never used one of these before.”
“I understand,” she said, sympathetically.
It wasn’t until I was a full two blocks away from the restaurant that I began to believe I’d pulled it off.
But not until the day they make food out of plastic will I be comfortable paying for it with plastic.
Credit card or no credit card, when you’re out of cash, you’re broke.
