Part 2 of a 3 part article. For part 1 take off the "r".
We found ourselves finally, after some ridiculous and unnecessary hours on the road basking in the Ligonier dusk. I was told that tomorrow an antique show to tell the neighbors about will be featured on the very stret we were staying, and much to my own relief I was not one of the relics to be sold by these artifact dealers.
I had collected my wife and daughter and a myriad of articles that they both found necessary with which to cram the car to overflowing for the weekend retreat, and then myself - coming down from my unpleasant moments of technological blundering through the all too common global positioning device which we mistakenly used to bring us to our lovely destination.
After the giggles of children and the tittering laughter of adults through complete exhaustion and copious amounts of red wine, my beloved and I carefully ascended the wonderfully restored staircase with ninja-like reflexes, passing by our slumbering daughter and into our pillow top bed, where we slept until 6:45 in the morning, receiving the usual better than 2 hours of sleep.
The sun rose and the antique dealers crawled out from their vehicles. They set shops up and down the main street, and quietly waited for interested buyers to creep up on them with coffees and - in our case children in hand or on shoulder.
Yes, two grown men and their respective children walking side by side - writer types. Both a little sleepy looking, and wives nowhere to be found - my, how fancy.
Bait - a really cool, old green-felt sofa.
Fish - "writer extraordinaire" in need of really cool, old green-felt sofa for really old house in a really old neighborhood.
Snag.
She takes cash.
My friend goes to an ATM. An ATM is a machine which reads a magnetized, plastic card which holds personal finances. Its primary use is to divvy out parts of your cash reserves. There are several other duties the computerized teller can perform, including that those reserves may be dangerously low.
My friend is astonished. Not so much alarmed, but bewildered. Apparently, someone, who he has never met has used his card to the tune of over $1000 USD. This stranger is in Great Britain.
We buy stuff on line every day. We pay with these magnetized cards, which have numbers to our personal and business financial accounts trusting that the seller is one of incredible integrity or that the financial institution he is using is credible. Complete strangers.
It is not like I have never bought anything online. Indeed, I have bought quite a few things online, but I have to reconsider it now. The whole "exposed anonymity" economics is seedy to say the least - the secure feeling that no one knows what is in that "plain manila envelope, but the trustworthy individual who gave it to you. Nothing to be embarrassed about, right?"
It used to be that we went to the corner newsstand, restaurant, clothier and supermarket for our goods. We paid cash and we walked away. The person on the other end of the counter was someone we trusted and were familiar with or at the very least a person whom we could “eye-up”, and then somewhere along our consumption, someone invented the credit card. With it we could take into our physical possession, the products that we believed that we wanted, and we went to places that seemed innocuous, and we began to place our trust in people with a nice appearance, never looking into their eyes. Still personal - they may say “Hello” and “Thank you”, thus ending the transaction. Now we go “online” to buy goods and services. We use our financial IDs, willingly giving it over to complete strangers.
It does not end there. These strangers can access our personal history, our families, our consumption history, and market accordingly; like exercise videos and whole foods? You can bet somewhere in your online visits, you will have something marketed to you accordingly – in spam and spyware.
Compare it to walking down a dark alley in the city, with cash pouring out of you pockets – bank number, your car keys, house keys, your favorite music, your favorite food, pictures of your family, and your place of business. And then hand them all over to the first stranger you meet. He.com (She.com) looks great – sexy and armed for protection, not to mention of course that because of this they appear trusting. You hand it over because they have the latest product and service. They tell you to wait by the dumpster for it.
Good idea.
Part 3
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