The last time I got a picture postcard in the mail was maybe twenty years ago, so yes, perhaps Jeremy never saw one. It is almost certain that he never received one. I can’t remember the last time I saw one in a gift shop, but I’m thinking probably about 2005. If anyone here sees one in a gift shop right now, let us know.
Related to this is the Arlo & Janis where the family is visiting Janis’ mother, and Janis is mortified when Gene sees an ironing board and asks what it is.
Yeah, and even if he knows what it is, I can imagine a millennial not seeing the point.
Mark, every gift shop in Chicago had postcards. And all the museum gift shops. So that’s as recently as earlier this week.
What Bill said. Where I am, every store has a gift/souvenir section, including grocery stores and even the Ace Hardware, (which I might add, does have a rack of postcards next to the checkout.). I’m not so sure people actually mail them anymore, so much as collect them, but I haven’t actually done a study to support that.
Yeah, OK, the premise is stupid – but that’s a gorgeous punchline…
Wherever I go, I send postcards to the family and colleagues.
In the last 4 years: Sweden, Belgium, France, UK, California, Algeria (a bit difficult for the last one: had to buy them at the airport but posted them from the boondocks without any problem). No luck in Kurdistan, though.
You can get postcards in most major cities, if you are in an area likely to be frequented by tourists. The last time we were in Washington, I had absolutely no luck in the suburbs, but found endless variety downtown.
Look, maybe kids aren’t this stupid, but THIS ONE is.
Right? This is Scott and Borgman’s character, so they get to decide how dumb (or not) their fictional character is.
The Walmarts in my part of the country typically have a spinner rack of postcards near the front.
MIB: definitely saw them in gift shops in Jasper and Banff recently. jj: I agree that it’s a dumb premise, but clever punchline.
There are also collectibles stores with many tables of vintage postcards. Some pristine, but many of them used: written, sent, received, and saved. Oh, and also some reissues.
My 10 year old son loves both sending and receiving postcards. Especially to and from his grandma.
He also doesn’t have his own phone, and I’m not sure if he know what Snapchat is.
The last time I made significant use of postcards was while I was in AF tech school, which was in the mid-80’s. My kid wasn’t particularly interested in them as mail. With instant email, getting snail mail just isn’t a big occasion like it used to be.
I think postcards cling to life mainly as “here’s a professionally-taken photograph of this tourist location at a cheap price”. People buy them and then take them home with them. That’s the last one I bought, anyway.
Aunts love to get them.
Yours, maybe. Mine, meh. My daughter has one, and she is more likely to send a Facebook whatchamacallit, and my daughter, too.
One of the late-night guys asked several kids on the NYC streets to tell time from a traditional clock. Quite a few had no clue.
This doesn’t really surprise me: a co-worker’s 11-year-old grandson didn’t know how to tell time from an analog clock — and this was back in the mid-70s.
Granted he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but still…
My 27-year-old son mentioned over the weekend that he hasn’t written an actual check since 2011.
(Knows what they are, though)
I guess I see this a bit differently.
The humor here is not “Gee, Jeremy sure is stupid.” The humor is that today’s teenagers are so obsessed with instantly and continuously documenting their lives with pictures and sharing that info with their friends that the concept of sending a post card (non-personalized picture, delayed delivery) is something with which they cannot relate. Is it hyperbole that this concept is pushed to the extent that Jeremy seems clueless to even the existence of post cards? Sure. Just like it is ridiculous hyperbole when Jeremy’s shoes are depicted as sofa-sized, or when RichandAmy’s arms are wrapped around themselves three times, or when Jeremy picks up the refrigerator and empties it into his mouth. It’s the stock and trade of this comic.
re “My 27-year-old son mentioned over the weekend that he hasn’t written an actual check since 2011.” — two different world, part the nth. Last time I used a credit card was over a year ago, and I think I’ve done so only about three times in the last two years.
The really scary thing is the story I read recently about some restaurants (who already, of course, do not accept checks) to stop accepting cash as well. They Can’t Be Bothered.
But now that you mention it, I can’t recall the last “picture postcard” I got from a social acquaintance. I do get occasional post cards from businesses, but they’re “all business.” And the only postcards I can recall sending in the last few years were to myself — a local book sale, whose date varies a bit each year, offers customers the chance to fill out a postcard to themselves (for a small fee) so they can send the sale details the following year when those are set.
“some restaurants […] stop accepting cash”
Unless you pay before eating, that’s problematic:
“THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE”
““THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE””
That’s fine and well and good, but we don’t have any change, so your $20 will be applied as $12.25 for your value meale, and a $7.75 tip. Have a nice day.
Next up. Your total comes to $20.05 after tax…
Back when people used cash for everything, what happened when a store or restaurant ran out of small change? Did everything come to a halt while someone ran to the bank? I don’t think whoever invented cash thought this through.
” what happened when a store or restaurant ran out of small change?”
The manager got fired for letting THAT ahppen.
Shrug/Arthur: My work cafeteria no longer accepts cash. Of course, it’s a cafeteria, so you do pay before eating.
Here’s what the Treasury department says on the matter:
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.
Brian in STL: This is true, a business can specify the form of payment, whether it’s credit cards, cash, or chickens. But I think Arthur’s point was that the no-cash requirement could be problematic specifically if you pay after eating.
If you pay before eating, the business can just refuse to engage in the transaction if they don’t like the way that you attempt to pay: “Get out of here, we only take credit cards or chickens.” If you’ve already eaten, you owe them $11.52, an amount the business has already specified in terms of US currency, and arguably they have to accept your $11.52 in cash, because it’s legal tender for all debts. (I say “arguably,” because there’s still room for debate here, but I tend to think the customer has the better argument here.)
If the customer has already agreed to pay for his meal with a credit card, it seems to me that supersedes the “legal tender for all debts” concept.
Practically speaking It might be difficult for the restaurant to prosecute him for theft of services or anything else, but I certainly wouldn’t say the customer has a better argument.
Bill: Suppose the restaurant has signs up saying “Customers must pay with cash while hopping on one foot.” The customer admits to seeing the sign before getting the meal, but after the meal, decides that the rule is stupid, and just hands them the $11.52 cash while refusing to hop. You might say that the customer has broken an implied contract, and that the restaurant is additionally entitled to the cash value of the hopping. But it’s difficult to argue that the customer hasn’t made a valid attempt to pay the $11.52 portion of his debt with legal tender, the lack of hopping notwithstanding. It’s certainly debatable whether the debt of $11.52 and the agreement to hop/use a credit card are separable, but I don’t think it’s clear that the “legal tender” argument has been superseded.
” If you’ve already eaten, you owe them $11.52, an amount the business has already specified in terms of US currency, and arguably they have to accept your $11.52 in cash, because it’s legal tender for all debts.”
Three counterexamples: A debt may have a contract that disallows prepayment. Second, “cash” includes change, and businesses may not have to accept coins. Finally, stores can, and some do, specify that they cannot (or will not) break large bills.
I think there was a Mark Twain story about a guy who had a bank note that was so large in denomination that no restaurant or store could make change. But everyone knew he was immensely rich and so he got everything on credit and never had to pay up.
“This is true, a business can specify the form of payment, whether it’s credit cards, cash, or chickens. But I think Arthur’s point was that the no-cash requirement could be problematic specifically if you pay after eating.”
Only if the restaurant doesn’t make it clear beforehand. So far all of the restaurants I have seen with this are “fast casual”, where you order and pay, then get your food when it’s prepared.
Mark: That’s “The Million Pound Bank Note.” The man isn’t actually immensely rich (the bank note isn’t his), but everyone assumes he is, and he’s able to use it to becomr rich.
Brian: Isn’t that just the case of paying before eating that I’m saying is non-problematic?
And by total coincidence, I just came across this:
“Brian: Isn’t that just the case of paying before eating that I’m saying is non-problematic?”
It’s a situation that doesn’t arise. The only restaurants doing it don’t allow you to “incur a debt”. If a sit-down restaurant ever started this policy, and I can’t see why it would, it would almost certainly alert customers before ordering.
The reason a few fast-casual restaurants have adopted the policy is to speed up the line. That’s not a problem at most others.
The bottom line is that the “all debts public and private” doesn’t apply to any current situations.
We send picture postcards when we go on a summer trip (have not done so in about 3 years) to children relatives – at this point that would just be Robert’s younger niece, but of course would not insult her sister by not sending her one also. I always bring postcard stamps when we go on summer vacation. (When in Colonial Williamsburg we mail that at the restoration’s print shop – hand canceled with a special (modern rubber) stamp.
The first time we went to Williamsburg together we had a credit card and limited cash. We found out that they did not accept credit cards in their restaurants – but they would bill us at home for the meal(s) – which they did. (One part of this is that they want people to stay at their hotels and one could have charged the meals to their room and probably paid the combined bill by credit card.)
I keep hearing people on a different group (not comics) insist that stores in their area (U.S.) no longer accept cash – I find that hard to believe.
We reached the point some time ago where we put just about everything on credit cards – paid in full every month (except once). It is much easier to figure out where the money went – plus we get 1% to 5% back on sales and sometimes that can add up – such as the year we bought a fence or when we charged the deposit on a car. (One time we had a statement balance of a couple of hundred dollars but we were juggling to pay it due to timing of when money was coming in. I called the credit card company and asked to redeem what I thought was around $25 in points to help out with it. To my surprise we (meaning I ) had not apparently not redeemed the card’s points in a while and it was around $250 instead of $25 and it paid the entire bill for us – a pleasant surprise.)
Many if not most insurance companies accept credit cards for payment. I often get a new card with a sign-up bonus at renewal time.
Comics I Don't Understand 
The last time I got a picture postcard in the mail was maybe twenty years ago, so yes, perhaps Jeremy never saw one. It is almost certain that he never received one. I can’t remember the last time I saw one in a gift shop, but I’m thinking probably about 2005. If anyone here sees one in a gift shop right now, let us know.
Related to this is the Arlo & Janis where the family is visiting Janis’ mother, and Janis is mortified when Gene sees an ironing board and asks what it is.
Yeah, and even if he knows what it is, I can imagine a millennial not seeing the point.
Mark, every gift shop in Chicago had postcards. And all the museum gift shops. So that’s as recently as earlier this week.
What Bill said. Where I am, every store has a gift/souvenir section, including grocery stores and even the Ace Hardware, (which I might add, does have a rack of postcards next to the checkout.). I’m not so sure people actually mail them anymore, so much as collect them, but I haven’t actually done a study to support that.
Yeah, OK, the premise is stupid – but that’s a gorgeous punchline…
Wherever I go, I send postcards to the family and colleagues.
In the last 4 years: Sweden, Belgium, France, UK, California, Algeria (a bit difficult for the last one: had to buy them at the airport but posted them from the boondocks without any problem). No luck in Kurdistan, though.
You can get postcards in most major cities, if you are in an area likely to be frequented by tourists. The last time we were in Washington, I had absolutely no luck in the suburbs, but found endless variety downtown.
Look, maybe kids aren’t this stupid, but THIS ONE is.
Right? This is Scott and Borgman’s character, so they get to decide how dumb (or not) their fictional character is.
The Walmarts in my part of the country typically have a spinner rack of postcards near the front.
MIB: definitely saw them in gift shops in Jasper and Banff recently. jj: I agree that it’s a dumb premise, but clever punchline.
There are also collectibles stores with many tables of vintage postcards. Some pristine, but many of them used: written, sent, received, and saved. Oh, and also some reissues.
My 10 year old son loves both sending and receiving postcards. Especially to and from his grandma.
He also doesn’t have his own phone, and I’m not sure if he know what Snapchat is.
The last time I made significant use of postcards was while I was in AF tech school, which was in the mid-80’s. My kid wasn’t particularly interested in them as mail. With instant email, getting snail mail just isn’t a big occasion like it used to be.
I think postcards cling to life mainly as “here’s a professionally-taken photograph of this tourist location at a cheap price”. People buy them and then take them home with them. That’s the last one I bought, anyway.
Aunts love to get them.
Yours, maybe. Mine, meh. My daughter has one, and she is more likely to send a Facebook whatchamacallit, and my daughter, too.
One of the late-night guys asked several kids on the NYC streets to tell time from a traditional clock. Quite a few had no clue.
This doesn’t really surprise me: a co-worker’s 11-year-old grandson didn’t know how to tell time from an analog clock — and this was back in the mid-70s.
Granted he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but still…
My 27-year-old son mentioned over the weekend that he hasn’t written an actual check since 2011.
(Knows what they are, though)
I guess I see this a bit differently.
The humor here is not “Gee, Jeremy sure is stupid.” The humor is that today’s teenagers are so obsessed with instantly and continuously documenting their lives with pictures and sharing that info with their friends that the concept of sending a post card (non-personalized picture, delayed delivery) is something with which they cannot relate. Is it hyperbole that this concept is pushed to the extent that Jeremy seems clueless to even the existence of post cards? Sure. Just like it is ridiculous hyperbole when Jeremy’s shoes are depicted as sofa-sized, or when RichandAmy’s arms are wrapped around themselves three times, or when Jeremy picks up the refrigerator and empties it into his mouth. It’s the stock and trade of this comic.
re “My 27-year-old son mentioned over the weekend that he hasn’t written an actual check since 2011.” — two different world, part the nth. Last time I used a credit card was over a year ago, and I think I’ve done so only about three times in the last two years.
The really scary thing is the story I read recently about some restaurants (who already, of course, do not accept checks) to stop accepting cash as well. They Can’t Be Bothered.
But now that you mention it, I can’t recall the last “picture postcard” I got from a social acquaintance. I do get occasional post cards from businesses, but they’re “all business.” And the only postcards I can recall sending in the last few years were to myself — a local book sale, whose date varies a bit each year, offers customers the chance to fill out a postcard to themselves (for a small fee) so they can send the sale details the following year when those are set.
“some restaurants […] stop accepting cash”
Unless you pay before eating, that’s problematic:
“THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE”
““THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE””
That’s fine and well and good, but we don’t have any change, so your $20 will be applied as $12.25 for your value meale, and a $7.75 tip. Have a nice day.
Next up. Your total comes to $20.05 after tax…
Back when people used cash for everything, what happened when a store or restaurant ran out of small change? Did everything come to a halt while someone ran to the bank? I don’t think whoever invented cash thought this through.
” what happened when a store or restaurant ran out of small change?”
The manager got fired for letting THAT ahppen.
Shrug/Arthur: My work cafeteria no longer accepts cash. Of course, it’s a cafeteria, so you do pay before eating.
Here’s what the Treasury department says on the matter:
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx
Brian in STL: This is true, a business can specify the form of payment, whether it’s credit cards, cash, or chickens. But I think Arthur’s point was that the no-cash requirement could be problematic specifically if you pay after eating.
If you pay before eating, the business can just refuse to engage in the transaction if they don’t like the way that you attempt to pay: “Get out of here, we only take credit cards or chickens.” If you’ve already eaten, you owe them $11.52, an amount the business has already specified in terms of US currency, and arguably they have to accept your $11.52 in cash, because it’s legal tender for all debts. (I say “arguably,” because there’s still room for debate here, but I tend to think the customer has the better argument here.)
If the customer has already agreed to pay for his meal with a credit card, it seems to me that supersedes the “legal tender for all debts” concept.
Practically speaking It might be difficult for the restaurant to prosecute him for theft of services or anything else, but I certainly wouldn’t say the customer has a better argument.
Bill: Suppose the restaurant has signs up saying “Customers must pay with cash while hopping on one foot.” The customer admits to seeing the sign before getting the meal, but after the meal, decides that the rule is stupid, and just hands them the $11.52 cash while refusing to hop. You might say that the customer has broken an implied contract, and that the restaurant is additionally entitled to the cash value of the hopping. But it’s difficult to argue that the customer hasn’t made a valid attempt to pay the $11.52 portion of his debt with legal tender, the lack of hopping notwithstanding. It’s certainly debatable whether the debt of $11.52 and the agreement to hop/use a credit card are separable, but I don’t think it’s clear that the “legal tender” argument has been superseded.
” If you’ve already eaten, you owe them $11.52, an amount the business has already specified in terms of US currency, and arguably they have to accept your $11.52 in cash, because it’s legal tender for all debts.”
Three counterexamples: A debt may have a contract that disallows prepayment. Second, “cash” includes change, and businesses may not have to accept coins. Finally, stores can, and some do, specify that they cannot (or will not) break large bills.
I think there was a Mark Twain story about a guy who had a bank note that was so large in denomination that no restaurant or store could make change. But everyone knew he was immensely rich and so he got everything on credit and never had to pay up.
“This is true, a business can specify the form of payment, whether it’s credit cards, cash, or chickens. But I think Arthur’s point was that the no-cash requirement could be problematic specifically if you pay after eating.”
Only if the restaurant doesn’t make it clear beforehand. So far all of the restaurants I have seen with this are “fast casual”, where you order and pay, then get your food when it’s prepared.
Mark: That’s “The Million Pound Bank Note.” The man isn’t actually immensely rich (the bank note isn’t his), but everyone assumes he is, and he’s able to use it to becomr rich.
Brian: Isn’t that just the case of paying before eating that I’m saying is non-problematic?
And by total coincidence, I just came across this:
“Brian: Isn’t that just the case of paying before eating that I’m saying is non-problematic?”
It’s a situation that doesn’t arise. The only restaurants doing it don’t allow you to “incur a debt”. If a sit-down restaurant ever started this policy, and I can’t see why it would, it would almost certainly alert customers before ordering.
The reason a few fast-casual restaurants have adopted the policy is to speed up the line. That’s not a problem at most others.
The bottom line is that the “all debts public and private” doesn’t apply to any current situations.
We send picture postcards when we go on a summer trip (have not done so in about 3 years) to children relatives – at this point that would just be Robert’s younger niece, but of course would not insult her sister by not sending her one also. I always bring postcard stamps when we go on summer vacation. (When in Colonial Williamsburg we mail that at the restoration’s print shop – hand canceled with a special (modern rubber) stamp.
The first time we went to Williamsburg together we had a credit card and limited cash. We found out that they did not accept credit cards in their restaurants – but they would bill us at home for the meal(s) – which they did. (One part of this is that they want people to stay at their hotels and one could have charged the meals to their room and probably paid the combined bill by credit card.)
I keep hearing people on a different group (not comics) insist that stores in their area (U.S.) no longer accept cash – I find that hard to believe.
We reached the point some time ago where we put just about everything on credit cards – paid in full every month (except once). It is much easier to figure out where the money went – plus we get 1% to 5% back on sales and sometimes that can add up – such as the year we bought a fence or when we charged the deposit on a car. (One time we had a statement balance of a couple of hundred dollars but we were juggling to pay it due to timing of when money was coming in. I called the credit card company and asked to redeem what I thought was around $25 in points to help out with it. To my surprise we (meaning I ) had not apparently not redeemed the card’s points in a while and it was around $250 instead of $25 and it paid the entire bill for us – a pleasant surprise.)
Many if not most insurance companies accept credit cards for payment. I often get a new card with a sign-up bonus at renewal time.