Come back with cash

This time, though, the swiper-thing beeped in an alarmingly different kind of way, and the guy looked up at me and said in a voice that I’m pretty sure they’re trained to use (a tone that soothingly implies this is clearly just a computer glitch), “Oh, damn. It’s this machine. The card didn’t go through. Do you have another one?”

And as I fumbled for another card, I also fumbled for words: “What? This is … the card is … what? There’s a mistake here, and I…”

Full disclosure: There have been times in my life when I knew exactly why the card was declined — that’s what being broke means. You’ve run out of cards. But it’s been a long time.

Many years ago, when I wasn’t as responsible as I am now, I took a bit longer than 30 days to pay my American Express bill. Back then, before the economic collapse of 2008, when every financial institution in America was asking for debt relief, they all had a pretty rigid idea of what qualified as prompt payment, and 40-plus days wasn’t it.

I found out just how irritated American Express was with me when I cavalierly put my card down to pay for a meal at a local Venice Beach restaurant.

The proprietor of the place had seen it all in his 30 years of owning a watering hole a few steps from the beach, so he knew exactly how to handle this.

He sauntered over to my table, asked about our meal, complimented the ladies present, and then put one of his large hands on my shoulder in an avuncular and friendly way.

“Mr. Long,” he said. “Could I see you for a moment?”

And he led me into his small office, held up my worthless card, and told me that American Express was declining to accept the charges.

I did the usual thing. I pretended there had been some mistake. I threw out the possibility that there was a computer error. I did everything and tried everything except telling the truth, which was that I was a 23-year-old fool who had spent too much.

In the middle of my weasel-wording, the owner held up his hand.

“Brother, we’ve all been there,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know in private.”

He tossed me my card and said, “They wanted me to cut it up, but I can’t do that to another guy. As I said, we’ve all been there. Piece of advice: Be careful with the dough. If it comes fast but goes out faster, that’s gonna be a problem.”

He held up the check and put it in his pocket. “Come by tomorrow with cash.”

That’s what I was remembering as I fumbled for another card. But then my phone rang, and it was the credit card company doing what it calls a security check: Was I trying to make that purchase? Is the card in my possession? What are the last four digits of my Social Security number? It was all delivered in a cheerfully upbeat tone of voice, radiating competence and safety. All was well. I was not suddenly broke.

The person on the other end of the line signed off with a pleasant, “Thank you for your patience, sir. We’re just trying to protect our cardholders from fraud. Go ahead and use the card now, and the charge will go through.”

That’s what the person from the fraud detection unit of the credit card company was saying, but what I heard was: Why are you buying that thing anyway? Do you really need the new iPad? You have a perfectly good iPad right now. Remember: An iPad is just a thing. And you have so many things.

“Should I run the card again?” the salesman asked.

“Actually, no,” I said. “It turns out that I don’t really need this.”

I walked out of the Apple store empty-handed but about $1,400 richer. “Protecting cardholders from fraud” is a great way to interrupt the trance that comes over me when I start to buy an expensive object, but let’s face it: It’s a terrible business model. It would have been a smarter business move for the salesman to just give me the iPad and tell me to come back the next day, with cash.

Rob Long is a television writer and producer and the co-founder of Ricochet.com.