So bear with me here, I'm still working this out...

But I often think about how much money I might give to homeless people if they simply took some form of payment other than cash.

Like, if there was a way you could somehow give them a couple bucks with a credit card. Or ideally, Apple Pay them. Your phone's probably already in your hand anyway, you wouldn't even have to fumble with your purse or wallet.

I think about this all the time, about how they could realistically do this. How could they somehow accept digital payment, but without the optics of doing so being repugnant from a perceptual standpoint?

(Hey now! If they are so desperate, how do they have a Square Card Reader?!! Etc....)

As a society, I have no doubt we will get there -- that we’ll reach a point where beggars all accept digital payment -- I just wonder what that will look like, and what technology it is that will make that possible.

Seriously though, how many times have you honestly wanted to give someone a few bucks and couldn’t, simply because you don’t have a single dollar or coin anywhere in your car or on your person? And now that parking meters all take credit cards, I don’t even CARRY AROUND QUARTERS in my car anymore.

I know that on multiple occasions I have either stopped myself from saying, or unthinkingly said out loud, some version of, "If only you took a credit card!" Is that wrong to say? I don't know, but any day now I am waiting for someone to say back to me, as I'm rolling up my car window, "Actually, sir, I do!"

Don't worry, if you weren't prepared for that response, just say okay... but that all you have is AN AMERICAN EXPRESS. If they don't punch you in the face first, at least that'll shut 'em up.