Kirsten's Desk

I have one book of blank cheques. I’m not sure the precise date it was issued, but I can say that it’s from four addresses ago, and the year field is still listed as 19__.

There’s a slightly more up-to-date book associated with our joint account (the date fields at least geared to this century), but I think the last cheque we wrote was to the guy who refinished our living room floor last year. 

Our bills are all auto-paid from our bank account. We use debit to buy most things (when we haven’t procured cash from the ATM), and occasionally we pull out a credit card. I can’t remember the last time I saw the decor inside a bank.

This is why all those still-writing-2011-on-all-my-cheques jokes freak me out a bit. Does anybody still accept personal cheques? And do kids under 19 even know what they are, or how to fill one out?

It’s the same with music. I mentioned in a previous post that The Husband and I bought ourselves a turntable for Christmas, and we’ve spent the holidays working our way through the old records we’ve kept all these years.

My sister and her brood were at our house for Christmas. The kids had never in their lives heard music played on vinyl. I don’t think they appreciated the little pops and hisses the way we did.

Technology is going to be a plus for the next generation. When your children’s children are given the unfortunate task of cleaning out their aging parents’ houses, they won’t need to have yard sales to deal with the endless mounds of books and records and CDs, or spend an eternity shredding paper files. Because entire collections will be in computers and back-up drives, stored in e-readers or cloud storage centres.

I wonder if moving companies are worried about a possible decrease in future business thanks to less household clutter. But that might spur them to go above and beyond to ensure good customer service.

In fact, they might even accept payment via personal cheque.