I hate shopping with a credit card. I mean, I’m not a big fan of shopping under the best of circumstances, because I am secretly agoraphobic and I have an aversion to shopping when a) I have no money and/or b) I don’t need anything. Because I think there’s something a little…wrong about looking for a chance to think about things to want.

Wanting something is great. Wanting is one of the great driving forces on the planet, if not THE driving force. Casting about aimlessly for ideas about what to want makes me itch. I’m sure this is all relatable to my mom forbidding me to go hang at the mall with my friends when I was a teenager, but that’s for a different day.

But there’s something about checking out when I actually do force myself into a store that creeps me right out, or at least drives me to the ATM to get cash before I enter a store:

It’s the constant validation process.

Back in the day, you’d walk into a store, make a selection, proceed to the checkout, and then give the cashier, well, CASH. Hence the name.

I got a little older, and got a checkbook. At this point, given my organizational skills at the time, it was the cashier’s risk when he/she took the check. Check guarantee cards were nice. Then it became the bank’s risk. (I never abused that, btw; it wasn’t until The Great Unintentional Paper Hanging Incident of 1996? ’98? that I really got into trouble, but that was for different reasons and is also for another day)

It was in the late 70’s that I encountered the concept of credit card authorization, where if a purchase was more than $50 the cashier had to pick up the phone, punch in a bunch of numbers, hang up, and reach for the scissors.

Ha ha! That never happened to me, either, but the trend began, and has only increased to this day:

Every single time I go to buy something with plastic, either in person or on the internet, I must endure a validation process. It doesn’t matter to me whether I have money or not; there’s always that few seconds where I’m wondering, “Will the system validate me? Will all the numbers line up? Am I good enough?” This situation is not helped by the fact that my secret nightmare is that I’ll wind up a bag lady. (Note: for someone with that kind of fear, you’d think I’d save more money. But that’s for another day.)

)It also doesn’t help that sometimes the system is just dead wrong. Dad, Interrupted and I were out buying groceries on New Year’s Eve once and got denied on our debit card even though we knew we had at least four digits [to the left of the decimal, thank you very much, and no, that doesn’t happen very often so that’s why I remember it]. Turns out that the credit union was having a glitch authorizing anything for anyone because of year end close. Didn’t matter, though. The fear that shot through me was both graphic and galvanic…the “BAG LADY” tattoo immediately appeared on my forehead.

But usually the words “Approved” flash up on the screen and, once again validated, I am on my merry way. But still at the mercy of the financocracy that defines our lives today.

I’m starting to think that maybe this constant testing, even when we’re continually found worthy, takes something out of us. I mean, think about it: if you’ve ever been in a relationship, what would it be like to be with someone who was constantly (five times a day, perhaps?) testing you? Even if you passed muster every. single. time, you’d at some point want to say, “HEY! Little trust?”

This is eroding our national psyche. I just know it.