The world is filled with ridiculous relics of the past.
From neckties—first worn by Croatian mercenaries during the 30 Years War(1618-1648) to hold the tops of their jackets together—to heels—originally worn by cavalry soldiers in the 10th century to keep their feet in the stirrups—the world is awash with nonsense from the past that oddly still seems completely reasonable today.
Two that have come to my attention this week:
Did you know that credit card companies stopped requiring you to sign the check at a restaurant or for any other rudimentary purchase back in 2018?
It’s been six years since we’ve been required to sign when using a credit card, yet people continue to unnecessarily sign papers that will never be read, scrutinized, or even required under audit.
It’s completely legal to walk out of a restaurant without signing the check, yet we continue to do so.
Why?
Because we used to do so.
This week, the Federal Aviation Administration eliminated a rule requiring an off switch for the “No smoking” sign on airplanes even though smoking on U.S. flights ended in 1988 and almost all flights worldwide in 2000.
These lights can now remain on permanently.
Before this, flights had actually been delayed because the off switch was found to be inoperable, even though the sign was never turned off.
Why?
No one had ever bothered to change the rule.
Here’s one that I would like to end immediately:
Pennies
A conservative estimate is that 240 billion pennies are lying around the United States—about 724 ($7.24) for every American.
A penny costs two cents to make and is almost rarely used,Its primary purpose is to hand back accurate change during cash purchases, which means clerks hand out billions of pennies every year to people who will never spend them again.
As the New York Times so eloquently described:
“This creates an incessant demand for new pennies to replace them so that cash transactions that necessitate pennies can be settled. Because these replacement pennies will themselves not be spent, they will need to be replaced with new pennies that will also not be spent, and so will have to be replaced with new pennies that will not be spent, which will have to be replaced by new pennies (that will not be spent, and so will have to be replaced).”
In other words, we keep minting pennies because no one uses the pennies we mint.
Now that we have eliminated the signing of checks and the off button on the “No smoking” sign, perhaps the penny could be next?
Please?
A little less stupidity in this world would be a wonderful thing.
