The Thrill Is Gone

No doubt most of you remember the feeling when you held your first-ever paycheck in your hands. You   rushed down to the bank to either add to your fledgling savings account, or to cash it and splurge on some totally unnecessary item in celebration that you were now officially part of the workforce.

For me, my inaugural pay stub was in the grand amount  of $37.50 which I earned as a movie usher asking patrons whether they wanted to sit in the balcony or loge and guiding them to their seats using an oversized flashlight.  That alone should tell you how long ago it was in today’s big-box world of 15-screen mega-plexes or purchasing movies directly from your cable provider.

As your career progressed, sadly, that feeling sort of dissipated, brought on by a combination of routine and direct deposit, the electronic routing marvel that saved thousands of hours of waiting times on snaking bank lines.

But for me and I’m sure millions of others, those long-ago forgotten endorphins were released once a year around this time as I paced between the house and the mailbox a minimum of twice daily in anticipation of receiving my federal and state tax refund checks – on the years of course there were checks  to receive.

But now with the IRS’ E-file program even the delight of holding an annual tax refund check has gone the way of VHS or DOS operating systems.

I have to admit, I was a latecomer to the program which was actually introduced roughly a decade ago, or more accurately, my paid preparer was. Now due to new regs mandating that everyone who prepared more than 10 returns had to e-file them, it was either compliance or finding a new home-based business for him.

And those who were experienced with the electronic program assured me my refund check would arrive weeks sooner than it had by traditional snail mail (which they did). Yet there was something missing, even as I looked at the amounts directly deposited in my account.

This was the one time a year I didn’t mind waiting in a bank line, but there are just some things that disappear in the name of progress.

Now if I can just find a buyer on eBay for my 8-Track tapes of the Bay City Rollers’ greatest hits.