Thanks, but no thanks

I just turned down an opportunity to get $10. It was offered if I would start paying my bills on the Internet instead of in person, or by US Mail. All I had to do was sign up with the bank for this service and I no longer would need to write checks, find a stamp, or run into a local store to pay a bill. It would save me money on stamps. Supposedly it would make bill paying painless and the bank, my creditors and I would live happily ever after.

But I said NO.

I have reached the point in my middle age plus years where I don't want to have to learn a new system when I am very comfortable with the old one. I know I resisted the computer for several years and now I can't imagine life without it. But it still gives me problems about twice a week. Something goes wrong, I hit a wrong key, or I erase an article I just finished writing. I rant and rave that if I had written it on a Big Chief tablet I would still have all those words of wisdom. But as soon as the problem is fixed I go back to writing on the computer because it is so much easier.

The bank says that banking electronically will be easier also. It probably would, but it is also easy to write a check. I remember learning how to write a check in Mrs. Knowlden's 5th grade class. We wrote checks for hundreds of dollars on a mythical bank account and passed them to classmates who were the creditors. They endorsed the checks and we all had a good time with our important, grown-up knowledge about handling money.

I passed the fifth grade several years ago, but I still remember all I was taught. It comes easy. I have a nice record in my checkbook stubs and I don't have to turn anything on to verify a payment or pay a new bill. I can take care of things as they come in.

Learning new things is not hard for me. But I have enough pressures in my life that I question why I should add one more pressure to learn how to do something I have already been doing very nicely for at least 60 decades.

If it isn't broken, why fix it? (Usually that quotation is worded differently but since I want to impress you readers that I remember my schooling, I will use correct English.)

Another thing that bothers me is what will happen to the US Mail System if most of us begin to do our correspondence through thin air? It's sort of like my desire to keep a nice restaurant on the square. If we want one there, we have to use it. I want a Post Office in our town, so I will use it. (I can't mail my books over the Internet so I need the Post Office.) That same problem is coming up about the telephone system versus Cell phones, but that will be a discussion for another column.

We had to quit taking the Kansas City Star after many years of being faithful readers because they couldn't afford to deliver it to our farm. They wanted us to subscribe to it electronically. But you can't prop yourself up in bed to do a crossword puzzle on your computer. Even a laptop doesn't snuggle very well. Also there is no way to read an article or two in the bathroom.

I don't want the same thing to happen to our banks. So I will continue my handwritten policy of paying bills, if I can find a stamp in my purse somewhere.