automatic for the people

Jennifer has always been a big fan of automatic bill payment.  As each one of our utilities and other routine bills has offered an automatic payment service, we've signed up for it.  Not only is it good for us b/c we don't have to remember to pay the bill, write a check, find a stamp, and mail the payment each month, but it's good for the recipient b/c they are assured that they will get paid promptly each month.

We've gotten to the point where we have only 2 regular bills that aren't paid automatically.  One is the sewer bill, which only comes every 3 months, and the other is LawnBoy's bill, which only comes in months when the lawn needs mowing.  Well, LawnBoy's first bill of the season came last month, and Jennifer pulled it out of the mail, and put in in the little holder thing where she puts anything she needs to do something about.  Every time she'd walk past it she'd think "yeah, I really need to find my checkbook and pay that."  See, one of the problems with never needing to write checks is that Jennifer couldn't remember where she'd last seen her checkbook.  This weekend, she finally went on a mission to hunt it down.  When she found it, and started to write out the check, she noticed in the register that the last time she'd written a check was in October.  You may notice that this is more than 3 months ago.  In fact, it is more than 6 months ago.  This leaves Jennifer wondering what the heck has happened to our last 2 sewer bills.  Also, what sort of negative consequences befall someone who doesn't pay this bill?  We're pretty sure we don't want to tick off the people who run our sewer system.  

So, hunting down the sewer bills is tonight's exciting project.  But at least we could pay the lawn bill.  Jennifer wrote the check, stuck it in the envelope....and...oh, right....stamps.  Since we don't have to mail bills much, and most of our correspondence happens electronically, we don't go through stamps very quickly.  And again, the first order of business was to find the stamps.  That actually didn't take too long.  But when Jennifer pulled them out and saw that they were the kind that you get right after a rate increase that don't have a value on them, she was reminded of something else: she's pretty sure there's been another postage increase since she bought these stamps.  Which, again, shows you how infrequently we use them.  All they said on them was "first class mail" or something.  So, the question was, is that acceptable no matter what the rate is?  Not willing to risk it, and also not needing to keep a large supply of stamps, Jennifer just stuck 2 on the envelope and mailed it.

The point of all this is that the more you automate, the harder it gets to do things the "old fashioned" way.  Who among us could make our own soap if we had to?  Or use the can-opener on a Swiss Army knife?  (Jennifer would like to point out that that is something she can (no pun intended) do, but she'd guess that most people can't.) We're already at a point where most kids don't remember a TV w/o a remote, or a rotary phone.  And as we're sitting here typing this, it makes us wonder, do you think we'll get to a point where people can't write anymore?  Kids will go off to kindergarten and instead of handwriting lessons, they'll get typing lessons? Geez, for all we know that's already happening.