Sorry We Don't Take Cash

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He held up the line at the drugstore today. The cashier patiently counted the money, mostly coins. We craned our necks to see what was holding the line. You know how it is, people wasting our time.

Paying cash. Who does that? It irritates us to no end, we the swipe and tap nation. We even pay with our cellphones. What kind of person pays with cash?

Cash is backward. It is yesterday. It’s a sign of poverty. Ironic isn’t it? Cash money, used to be a measure of wealth. It bought everything. It bought slaves from Africa. The British Empire, French and German colonies had land, but no coins so they were deemed ‘poor.’

In Victorian England, money bought working class women who worked as sex workers. There are thousands of movies about treasure chests full of gold and coins. When did money lose its value and social standing?

Technology. We swipe and tap cards to buy coffee or hamburgers. We punch our access codes online to gamble or buy forbidden men and women.

Sorry. We don’t take cash because it is reality. It is something we actually have. It can be counted, although it holds up the line at the drugstore. With technology, we spend what we don’t have. That is affluence.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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