Anything Helps: Visa, AMEX, Mastercard?

Just now while speaking to the nice Target.com lady with a fake American accent, "Val-uh-ree!", I had a strange thought. She did a great job, I almost didn't pick up on the accent. Personally I prefer genuine accents to the fake ones. I don't know why, but it's always been easier for me to understand poorly spoken English in someone's native accent than to try and decipher the words they are trying to fake. Maybe the fake American accent bypasses the badly spoken English translator from the processing chain?

This sentence and the preceding paragraph are in no way related to my strange thought, but it looks better if I fill the page a little more before I get to my actual reason for writing this in the first place so I'm making you read all of this meaningless text. 

You're welcome!

Here's the thought, and it's going to sound mean because inevitably everything I say or write comes across that way for some reason. It's not my intention to sound mean, in fact, I'm thinking this with a smile. Picture if you will an anthropomorphic brain, and it's smiling, you can see the brain's teeth! Does that make this post feel more happy? Wait! Come back!

Okay, fine, here's the thought:

Fact: There are people at many street corners begging for money. 

Fact #2: Most US Americans don't carry cash anymore.  

Fact #3: Many of those folks begging at street corners have smart phones. (I don't have a citation for this, just personal observation, which is good enough for me).  

Fact #4: You can get a credit card reader for your smart phone. Sometimes for free!

I'm not against charity at all, but I don't think that personally I would pull out my card to give a donation. I'd much rather physically take someone into a store to buy them what they need, or buy them a meal at a nearby restaurant, which I have done many times (This is not a humble brag, it is an attempt to make this post sound less horrible than I feel like it sounds).

That's the end of my thought... Oh, wait, nope, there's more.

Would you like to leave a tip? 

Okay, now I'm done.