Or how about at the grocery store, when the clerk has finished ringing up about $160 worth of groceries for the lady in front of you... and then she starts fishing through her purse, trying to find her checkbook.

When cash/check transactions were the "dominant paradigm" (argh!) I'm guessing this would be the ugly scenario that you would be more likely to encounter (though I can say that I have), but the underlying problem seems behavioral -- customer who doesn't have their [censored] together.

I use my debit card quite happily for groceries and it serves as a nice, no-charge "cash back", ersatz ATM, too. I'd say, though, that nowadays, you are as likely to get stuck behind some disorganized person fishing for their debit card as you are to be stuck behind someone fishing for their cash.

What irks me (mildly) about my occasional plight at Tully's is that the problem is not really behavioral but systemic. More often than is desirable, the POS (nice double entendre, eh?) card reader won't work, or the connection to the verification system won't work, or it will take *forever* because the system is getting hammered by Christmas shoppers. Meanwhile, I'm standing there with $2 in my hand, and all I want is a cup of coffeeeeeee!!!!

So, I guess I could say that I have less of a problem with credit card verification problems (in front of me or when it happens to me) when I am at the end of a 45-minute grocery shop worth $80 as compared to those times when I attempt to acquire a $1.50 Grande half-caf drip in an interaction that *should* take 1 minute but instead takes 4 or 5.

Eh?