Yesterday morning, I visited my local congressman’s office to purchase a new flag. I pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, since the cost of the flag was eighteen dollars.
“Oh, we don’t take cash,” the office administrator said. “We have to send the money to Washington, and it has to go through a scanner to make sure it’s safe.”
“How about credit cards?” I said.
“We don’t take those either. We take only personal checks.”
I was nonplussed. I mean the Department of the Treasury printed the currency in my wallet; so, while I understand the security issues in Washington, I found it ironic that our own government didn’t accept cash in this instance. I assumed personal checks are subjected to the same scanner scrutiny, but didn’t feel like arguing my case. Instead, I offered to pay for the flag with a check, which the woman accepted without any additional identification.
While I left the congressman’s office with my new flag, I also left with more questions. Regardless of its form, what is the payment scanned for? Virus? Fingerprints? What if someone writes a bogus check for a flag? Does the government come after them? Are my fingerprints on the check compared to those in the FBI files?
I’ve wondered when the day would come when people would not accept cold, hard cash as payment for something. It came one step closer yesterday.
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