Checks

We are proud to offer one of our first guest reviews on Review-Spew. Welcome, Albino Rhino. May your words inspire and your review inform. Thanks for taking the old adage "Don't knock it till you review it" to heart. -Meatwad



Many of you may already know me, as Meatwad was able to pull me away from another very popular blogging site. For those of you who don’t know me, well, let’s just say that little map over in the corner with the red dots indicating the reader locations will probably just be a big red splurge from all of my followers.

Ok, in all actuality, this is my first blog…ever! Yes I know it’s hard to believe. I am slowly realizing there is a rather large cult-like underground world of bloggers. Somehow I totally missed out on this until now. I have been following the Review-Spew blogs since its start. Matt, Major_Undeclared, and Meatwad have done a fine job in keeping my attention with their great reviews. I have even seen people wearing their T-shirts on a few occasions. So I am anxious to throw my hat in the ring.

I wasn’t entirely sure of the rules. Nobody told me if I could talk about nudity and porn, or use foul language, so I wanted to keep it safe, so as to not get kicked off after my first review. In contemplating my first review, I immediately thought of one of the banes of my existance. I was in the bank a few weeks back opening up a new checking account. Now during this process, and during the course of several years at my current job, I realized how absurd a checking account really is. Lets jump back into history twenty years or so. At a young age I worked on the family farm making what was some pretty good money for someone that age. My parents, at their feeble attempt to teach me responsibility, opened up a checking account for me. I slaved away from sunrise to sunset during the summer. Each payday I would go to the bank and deposit my paycheck into the checking account.

Soon summer ended and I was back in school. I had a huge, almost odd, fascination with Bo Jackson (another blog idea!) at the time. It didn’t take long to meet that kid that had just about every baseball and football card ever made. I remember him quite well. Pudgy, stain on his shirt that was about two sizes too small, in need of a haircut, and glasses which could start dry grass on fire if the sun were to hit them just right. Regardless of his appearance, he had the goods I was in search of, Bo Jackson cards. We made the trek to his house after school one day. Down the stairs into the basement we went. Upon entering his room he opened a box which was organized and alphabetized in a manner of OCD I have never seen since. He removed the requested cards and laid them before me. The price was fifty dollars American currency. Little did I know I would pay more for these three cards than my entire collection would ever be worth.

I’ll take them I said as I drew out my checkbook. The smell of the blue vinyl cover made my hands shake as I wrote out the fifty dollar check. I handed the kid the check and he just sat there and looked at me in disbelief. There was no way a thirteen year old kid was going to take a check from another kid his age for baseball cards. Nope! Not gonna happen. I finally got to take my baseball cards home but it took some substantial effort and a long walk to the local grocery store to cash the check.

Now, years later, adults are still writing out promises to pay on pieces of paper. Why in the word are grown human beings still using checking accounts? I mean, if a thirteen year old is smart enough to know that there may very well not be any damn money in your account, and he is trading goods for worthless paper, when are the rest of us going to catch on?

So, as I sat there in the bank opening my new checking account, I thought to myself, why are we really still using these things? The big hype now is GO GREEN, save the environment, recycle, be earth friendly. The bank was willing to give me exactly seventy-five books of checks free. That has to be a lot of paper right? Worthless paper in my opinion, paper I will never use. In the age of paperless billing, credit cards, automatic payments, and ATM machines, adults are still really given little rectangular pieces of paper to write random amounts of money, which in essence we will try to pay back at some later time!?! This makes no sense to me, none..notta...zip.

I suppose in a society where everyone was responsible and honest this whole checking account might be somewhat of a good idea. I think we all know at this point, a place like that doesn’t exist. People have almost gone out of their way recently to cheat, lie, and steal instead of paying for it. If you have a checking account, there is really no reason to dress up in dark clothing with a ski mask. Simply walk into a store and write out a check. The clerk will smile at you, give you your merchandise, and off you go. Of course, you don’t live at the address on your check, and the phone number listed is out of service but that little piece of paper that you wrote the store is a promise and everyone keeps their promises.

As if that wasn’t enough to make checks irritating, I stopped by Wal-Mart shortly after ( I know I know…but hey where else can you get new tires, flowers for the ladies, and adopt a beta fish in one stop?). After selecting some must have items I rushed to the twenty items or less checkout stand. The sweet little old lady in front of me had about four items. She was standing there dressed so eloquently, smiling and holding her coin purse. The clerk was done scanning her items in 2.7 seconds. When given the total, I watched in horror as she opened her clutch, and withdrew a checkbook. OMG!!! NOOO. I mean, people are shooting people on the roadway because another car cut them off, I promise you it won’t be long until check writers are dropped on the spot. The only thing that saved this lady was the fact that she looked so sweet and smelled of a soft flowery fragrance. By the time she was finally done writing her check I was late to work. I personally see no need for checks in this modern age. We should rename the checking account, get rid of checks, and pretend we were never foolish enough to allow this all to happen in the first place.

I give the whole checking account one star, and that’s only because I still have my three Bo Jackson baseball cards. If anyone is interested, make me an offer. I don’t accept checks!