Cash, the Modern English Monarch

Dear grip* holders,

On the news recently, there was a brief story about how some airline is no longer accepting cash as a form of payment for the formerly included amenities that are now optional for a small fee (food, drinks, check-in bags, pillows, blankets, the shoddy unbalanced tray table, the seat cushion, the privilege of using the facilities, breathable air, etc). They now only accept credit or debit cards. Plastic > paper, apparently.

All U.S. bills carry this message in tiny capitalized print: THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. That little wording means that cash is king. Cash is universal. It’s what the backwoods folks take the middle of nowhere. Even bears and deer take it as a form of payment, because as a living, breathing thing in the United States, you’re obligated to take it!

Not quite. The 10 lawyers for every 1 doctor in the U.S. (isn’t that a sad ratio?) will be quick to point out the wording: all debts. If there isn’t a debt, then there isn’t an obligation to accept the almighty greenback (with the peach, blue, yellow, and even fuchsia tint on the front). Let’s have a couple of examples:

Debt: After a meal at a sitdown restaurant, you now owe the establishment for the food. This is a debt. Any U.S. bill will work, and Mr. Franklin is accepted everywhere. According to one of my patrons, if a place will not accept cash, then the debt is immediately absolved. That’s why you don’t see the message ‘No Bills over $20’ at a dine-in restaurant.

Not debt: A fast food joint where you pay when you order. There is no debt yet since they haven’t given you a good or service; therefore they’re not obligated to take bills over $20. Same thing at convenient stores: a debt is never created for the ‘legal tender for all debts’ to take effect.

So unfortunately, the airline is within its legal right to refuse to take your cold, hard cash in exchange for its similarly cold, hard pillow.

Like the modern English monarch who is only a figurehead and is hardly lord (or lady) of Britain, the U.S. note is fading as the defining impetus of our society. Its weakening stance in our economy in relation to plastic is paralleled by its position in relation to the Euro. Even the villains in the latest Bond film requested a bribe in Euros because ‘the dollar ain’t what it used to be.’**

But for myself, I will always carry a couple of dead white guys in my pocket, especially my favorite president: Mr. Andrew Jackson, with his white pompadour and sad eyes.
--

*Ghetto speak for the roll of bills that you hold with a ‘grip’
**The Quantum of Solace. A paraphrase, naturally.