money didn't used to be invisible. at least, not as invisible.
when you were a kid, money was frickin' vis.i.ble. you either had a dollar bill and two quarters in your pocket or you didn't. you'd either go to the corner store and buy some bubble gum or you didn't. period. visible. tangible.
these days, you hardly ever see money anymore. the closest anyone ever gets is a thin piece of plastic. and the thing about a thin piece of plastic is, regardless of how much "money" is in it, it's still thin. gone are the days when you could whip out a money clip and flash a fat wad of cash around.
money, these days, is more of an idea than an actual thing. it's just a numeral on a paper statement or a numeral on a computer screen. but it's nothing you can hold in your hand. if your statement says, for example, $50,000, you can't actually touch $50,000. it's not like you're gonna go to the bank and say to the teller, hey lady, go back in that vault of yours and get me my $50,000 - in ones. and it's not like if she actually did that for you that she'd come back out with a bag of bills with your name on it. i mean, it could be anybody's bag of $50,000! how do you know it's yours? whereas, back in the day, if you had a five in your wallet, you knew it was yours. to waste however you wanted.
due to an unusual set of circumstances over the holidays, i happened to actually have some money- some real, unadulterated, make-no-mistake-about-it money - in my purse. i remember opening my wallet and seeing the assortment of paper in there. some crisp, some not, but all of it real money. i was taken aback. i was! i didn't even recognize it at first!
personally, as with just about everything in life, i wouldn't mind if we went back to the old days. and we'd all use more real money and less of the invisible kind. i work too hard to have nothing to show for it.
not that i had anything to show for it back in the old days. :)
