Buddy Can You Spare 001011001000111010011010011011000110110000110100100101100010110011101?

Remember money? I bet some of you used to get paid with real money just like I did. And I don't mean a cheque either - I mean real folding money and coins, right down to the last penny owed. I think the last time I was paid in real money was when I worked retail in Calgary. Every Friday afternoon we would form a long line and receive our pay packets from the payroll lady who sat behind a folding card table in the lunch room. Pay packets were kind of exciting to receive; little brown envelopes with your name on the outside and cash on the inside - actual legal tender in exchange for a job well done. Now there is a blast from the past!

But for the last few decades it seems that more and more of us have been getting paid with electronic currency, digital money or to call it what it really is - numbers. The numbers are assigned to our bank accounts and then we in turn assign some of these numbers to other accounts in other banks to pay bills or buy goods. Then if we have enough numbers left over we can merely swipe or wave a card to purchase virtually anything - even a cup of coffee and a donut at Tim Horton's.

This is not necessarily a bad thing but it makes one wonder how much real money there actually is in the world anymore. Does anyone know, does anyone really care? How about panhandlers - a segment of the economy that has traditionally dealt in cold, hard cash? Their way of doing business surely must be threatened as prices go up and actual money becomes increasingly scarce. The days of soliciting the public for nickels and dimes are surely drawing to an end - why just last week an ambitious fellow in the street asked me for $7.00. Now I ask you, who carries around that kind of cash - certainly not me!

But there is hope. How long before we see an enterprising beggar on the street offering strangers the opportunity to transfer him some funds on his laptop or cellphone? The technology exists today although few of us would have the confidence to actually participate in such a scheme. But I fear it won't be long until someone comes up with a handy pocket sized gadget for that very purpose. Think of the opportunities for an entirely new mobile device with clever names like the PanHandler, the BumBuddy or Heaven forbid - the iSwipe.

Ours is a fast moving economy built on innovation and ingenuity, so it is only a matter of time before we long once more for the good old days of the pay packet. And how we will wish that guy on the corner could still be satisfied with a couple of quarters.