Nickel And Dimed
It’s funny and sad at the same time how sweeping changes can cause some people to come unhinged. I realize that change can be unsettling, and the older you get, the harder it can become to embrace the change around you. After all, you’ve spent your entire life figuring out what works for you, so why mess with it?
But you can’t stop this train we call Change, and for better or for worse, it takes us places we never considered before. Just like the old Taco Bell ads once proclaimed, “Change is good.” And I don’t think they were talking about coins jingling in our pockets.
Interestingly, it is that very change—the coins, not the abstract thought—that has some people in Amarillo upset right now. You see, the Sod Poodles, our Double-AA Minor League Baseball team, just announced they are going cashless this season, which is right around the corner. Oh my, the empty threats from people never to go to a ballgame. I’m pretty sure they haven’t been to one at Hodgetown anyway, but why let that interfere with their ire?
The baseball team and new stadium have been bones of contention ever since words were whispered about them coming for the 2019 season. City leaders approved the use of hotel occupancy taxes to build the gorgeous new stadium downtown. Those monies can only be used in promotional kinds of ways for cities, and infrastructure is one of them.
And then there was the team naming contest. When the winner was announced, you could hear the booing and hissing all the way down to Austin. What is a Sod Poodle, my non-Panhandle readers might ask? Well, the story goes that it’s an early pioneer nickname for prairie dogs, those little varmints that tunnel through the pasture, leaving scores of holes in which your cow might break a leg. Yeah, they’re cute, but also rather destructive.
To make matters worse, it was just announced a few days ago that the City approved $4.5 million in debt to bring the new stadium up to new specs mandated by Major League Baseball. Those rules are out of local hands. Heck, we should be glad that Amarillo made the cut a couple of years ago when they trashed a bunch of minor league teams. We could have been left with an empty stadium.
So here we are now, and fans will only be able to use plastic to buy a beer, hot dog, peanuts, or souvenirs. “But what about people who don’t have a debit or credit card?” the critics wailed. Simple. They are even installing reverse ATMs at the park so people can trade in their fives, tens, and twenties for a Visa debit card.
And yet that is not enough. The latest move is surely another sign of the coming of antichrist, that dreadful future time in which…wait, we already talked about this earlier in the term. Now you are welcome to believe what you want to believe, subscribe to a religion or not, but I beseech everyone to please reach down and untwist their undergarments. I’m pretty sure that John the Revelator was not writing about baseball in Amarillo.
Furthermore, this is not something happening only in Amarillo. The vast majority of major league baseball as well as NFL stadiums have gone cashless, and if you Google the phenomenon, you’ll also find that many minor league stadiums are in the process of converting to this as well.
I suspect a lot of the resistance is age-related. Younger people have no problem with it, because they have grown up using plastic as well as Venmo and other payment options. The WT campus has been cashless for a couple of years now, and students are simply accustomed to using their Buff Gold Card or other plastic to buy everything from a book of stamps to coffee, lunch, or logo wear.
As for me, I’m all in favor of this. I still have five twenties crumpled up in my wallet that I have been carrying around for more than nine months. I do keep a small pouch of coins in my van in the rare event I need to pay to park, but even that has gone cashless in most places. For example, I used my Park Mobile app yesterday to park in Dallas. It’s a lot easier than digging for coins.
And in states with toll roads, they’ve eliminated pretty much every human at toll booths, and replaced them with cameras. You either have a transponder on your windshield, or you pay by plate when they send you the bill. The states can access either others’ DMV databases quite easily now.
In spite of all my rational talk, there will still be those who drink from the cup of irrationality. They swear this is all part of an evil plan to monitor us all, to know every last step of our activities, and how we spend our money. Pass the tin foil, please.
Maybe the Amarillo complainers need to get out of town a little more. This is how it is done in an increasing number of places. And those clear plastic purses you bellyached about last year? Yeah. Same on that, too. Welcome to the 2020s. It’s different here, and your only real alternative is to either get on the Change Train, or just stay home.
Dr “Your Ways Are Quaint“ Gerlich
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