I am the kind of person that likes to do business with cash on the barrelhead. I do not like credit because it has a way of biting you in the end. When you have a credit card, there are fees to beat the band. I do have a credit card but I have it hidden so well that I have not been able to find it for seven weeks. I just do not like using it.

The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage always warns me about the possibility that someone can steal my credit card. Ha ha, I say in defiance to her warning. I am never worried about that. If anybody can get money out of my account with my credit card, I would like to work with them and go 50-50 on it. Every time I need money, my credit card is empty. I think there is a conspiracy in this whole thing.

Nothing is more embarrassing than going to a checkout counter to pay for goods that I intend to purchase and my credit card is denied. The reason I was using the credit card at the time was I did not have any cash in my pocket. Now, I have no cash in my pocket and my credit card is just grinning at me refusing to cough up the money needed for purchasing these goods.

I hate my credit card. And it is reciprocal. My credit card hates me and tries its level best to embarrass me every chance it gets.

When I do business, I want to know that I have done business. Nothing is more satisfying than completing a financial transaction with cash.

I have noticed a dangerous trend in the area of business in our country. There is a tendency away from cash. I do not understand it. I think the simplest thing to do would be to pay cash for something. But no, some people think that is so old fashion that they have to come up with something new.

Now they have this newfangled thing that you can pay your bills online. What is that all about? I like to see the person I am paying and hear from them their gratuitous "Thank you," for the transaction. I was just getting used to writing checks and now I do not have to use my checkbook anymore. My creditors want me to pay online.

When will all this craziness stop? If cash was good enough for Benjamin Franklin, it certainly is good enough for me.

Then the inevitable happened. You know how it is. Well, it happened to me.

I went to do a little bit of shopping while I was out of town on a trip recently. I made sure I had cash in my wallet so I stopped at a restaurant in the shopping mall. Normally I do not like shopping malls. I get nervous every time I go into one of these malls wondering if I will ever exit alive. There are just too many people in these malls for my comfort.

But the necessity of my trip brought me to this mall and I decided I would treat myself to lunch. One of the great things about treating myself to lunch when my wife is not with me is I can order what I want for my lunch. After all, it is my lunch.

I had a great time selecting things from the menu that had nothing whatsoever to do with vegetables. Vegetables are all right in their place, but their place is not on my lunch plate, especially when my wife is not present.

I had a scrumptious lunch and then top it off with a nice slice of apple pie à la mode. Life does not get any better than this. I sat back in my chair, rubbed my stomach and felt good about the world around me. I was even beginning to think that there might not be so much wrong with malls after all.

Finally, it was time to take my ticket up to the cashier and pay for my lunch. I was in for a very rude awakening. I presented my ticket to the cashier and pulled out of my wallet enough cash to cover the ticket.

"I'm sorry, sir," the woman behind the cashier said. "We don't accept cash in this restaurant."

I was in a good mood and laughed as though I was the vice President of the United States. "That's a good one," I complimented her.

"Sir, we don't take cash here," she insisted. "We are not set up for cash; all we take are credit cards."

About this time, I realized she was not joking. I found myself in the proverbial pickle with only cash on my person and no credit card.

"But all I have is cash."

Finally, the manager of the restaurant was called to the front, I was able to settle my ticket with him, giving him cash and he used his credit card to pay the ticket.

What is this world coming to when you cannot use cash anymore?

What is better than cash in my thinking is God's gift. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23 KJV).

Unlike cash, God's gift to me will never go out of style.