I'm watching the football playoffs and I keep seeing one commercial that bugs the crap out of me. It's the one of a deli crowded with customers all moving through the line in synchronization with the music, placing orders, receiving the filled orders and paying for them with their Visa check card. Everything comes to a screeching halt when one customer decides to pay with cash. It bugs me because I'm that guy. I prefer to pay for my everyday purchases with cash.

For many years I have avoided credit cards because I have a personal rule that, with the exception of major purchases like a house or a car, I never spend money I don't have and credit cards make it entirely too easy to do so. I did, however, recently succumb to the lure of pay-at-the-pump, so I got myself a debit card. Funny thing is, I still find myself hitting the ATM and using cash instead. I just chafe at the fees. When I got the card it was explained to me how to answer the question every retailer asks when I whip out my shiny new plastic money. Just say credit. You see, even though my card is only a debit card and not also a credit card, if I say "credit" when they complete the sale the transaction fee gets paid by the retailer instead of my bank. If I say "debit" the transaction fee goes to my bank and they, of course, pass it on to me. The whole idea of someone charging me (or anyone else) to spend my own money irks me. I just don't get it. How can an entire multi-billion dollar industry grow out of nothing but American impatience and laziness?

UPDATE: After letting this post percolate through my brain for a couple days, I've had another thought. As we move inexorably toward a paperless economy, at some point don't these charges stop being fees for carrying out transactions electronically and become nothing more than a corporately imposed tax?