ATMs and the Jetsons

In the closing credits of the Jetsons, Jane sticks out her hand, and George pulls some cash out of his wallet. Like George for Jane, my husband is my personal ATM.

I rarely have cash. And if I do carry bills it is usually just enough for an iced coffee and 6 munchkins at Dunkin’Donuts. For everything else---and I mean everything else-- I use my Delta Skymiles American Express card. I like the idea of being rewarded everytime I make a purchase. Or at least that is what I tell my husband as to why I overspend.

But today I needed some real currency. And while I have an ATM card somewhere in the house I am clueless to its location. And even if I found it I have long since forgotten the password---assuming of course the card is still active.  And the communion coffers---the pot I dipped into when the kids were young, has long been depleted. I had no option but to take it old school. I went to the bank and cashed a check. And the teller looked at me with such oddity I felt compelled to explain to her why I had to use such an archaic method to obtain cash. Because cashing a check at the window is rarely done anymore. I felt fortunate that the teller had denominations to give me---she nearly needed to get the mana   ger over to help her with the transaction.      

And when I got home and told my daughter that I needed to cash a check at the bank that day she asked me how did you to that? How do you get cash without an ATM card? And when she told me she does not use her checkbook  to pay her rent--she goes online and has a check electronically created and mailed to the landlord’s address I said how do you do that? How do you get the bank to write a check and mail it?

Neither one of us understood the other’s methodology.

And when George Jetson hands Jane the cash and Jane takes the wallet instead, I have to wonder—did she use George’s American Express card to do her shopping or did she use his ATM card to get more cash? It’s amazing to think how a futuristic show written in 1960 imagined talking computers and microwaved food, yet did not predict a world with electronic banking.