Gettysburg Times - Reporter's Notebook (06/23/07): "Brotherly Love"

The waitress brought us our $13.45 bill, and my sister calmly pulled a debit card from her purse.
I lectured her.
“You need to start carrying cash,” I told Jamie Lynn, a teenager who recently completed her first semester at Kutztown University.
She looked at me shell-shocked.
“Never get in the habit of using your debit card all the time,” I continued. “You should only be using it at the pumps, to pay for expensive gasoline. Not for a $13 lunch bill.”
Jamie shook her head up and down, indicating that she understood.
Lesson learned.
So we walk up to the restaurant’s front counter, and I hand the cashier my bill.
The cashier says: “Thirteen dollars and 45 cents please.”
I open up my wallet. Two musty dollars.
Subsequently, I pulled out my debit card.
“This is embarrassing,” I told the cashier.
My sister nudged me in the ribcage. Hard.
“Nice lecture, Scottie,” she said, her remarks dripping with sarcasm.
Lesson learned.
— Scot Andrew Pitzer