Plastic Cards

These days your wallet is filled with plastic cards. First, there is the one that keeps you from writing or buying checks. The debt card is the greatest invention of all time. You no longer have to wait in line while the person in front of you writes a check and records that purchase in a register. Unless, of course, that person is over 80. All you have to do is swipe, enter a pin number, keep the receipt and do your on-line banking. So many time wasting steps eliminated by this one card.

Then there are the ones that I first remember as metal plates. You know these, the ones that allow you to purchase anything you want as long as you don't exceed your credit limit. You can have hundreds of these which allow you to shop as if money were not an object. You can take great vacations, remodel your home, borrow cash, wear great clothes and jewelry by using one of these plastic cards. All wonderful things if you can pay the bills in full when they come. If not you are screwed, in just a matter of months you can get into some really big trouble. We all know about this peril now and hopefully before it wasn't too late.

The plastic cards that annoy me most are the smaller ones issued to me by every store I shop in. They are called MVP, VIP, Rewards or whatever catchy name the company comes up with. They give me the opportunity for great savings which I appreciate but how many of these can I carry? I was blessed one day at Bed Bath and Beyond at the check out to purchase a tiny, faux, snakeskin wallet to house these that is attached to my key chain. It now has twenty-five of these cards and unable to hold one more. If you are a man or don't have one of these little gems, what do you do? You fill out the paper work and the cashier puts in your phone number and you get the discounts. In this day and time a discount is welcomed.