The Value of Money

I was browsing the news stories on Yahoo a couple of days ago and clicked to find out "How to save money in 2010". Most of the time these things are common sense, but every now and then I come across something useful. This time they were talking the usual about paying off credit cards- but said not to cancell all of them. Not for the ususal reasons of your credit rating dropping if you do (something I still don't understand if I cancelled them, not them cancelling ME, but that's another can of worms). But for the simple fact that there are somethings you just can't seem to buy with cash anymore. I know, WHATTTT? But thinking about it, it's true. Their example was trying to buy a plane ticket with cash - almost a sure way to be flagged at the airport and extra screened. But then I was reminded of our honeymoon back in August. The final night of our trip, we found we had used our cash wisely and decided to pay the hotel room in cash. You would have thought we were trying to barter goods for the room. The clerk was simply perplexed. Now mind you we were checking in around 11 PM. We had to leave by 4 AM to catch our plane. Well, he could put the room on our card tonight and in the morning we could pay cash instead (YEAH, leave the next unlucky clerk to figure THAT one out and still be out the door in time to return the rental car and catch a flight out of San Francisco). Never mind, we just used a credit card. Now I know plastic is convienient. I have had to give a card when checking into a hotel for incidental expenses most times I traveled, even with McDonalds, but never before have I encountered someone not able to do a cash transaction. Just what are things coming to when money, good old American Greenbacks, seem to have no value in our own market place?