Adult Children by Stephen Beals for February 09, 2025

Tapped out

for some reason I do imagine him majoring in Quantum Physics

I guess paying with his watch is right out

I can identify with this. Took several trips to the store to figure out how to do it. Patient cashiers.

Show him how he can use his phone to tap and pay. It will blow his mind.

Is this a preview of tomorrow’s cartoon, editing “OF” to “OFF”?

Most of those machines still let you insert the card. I don’t really trust the tapping function.

Reminds me of years ago driving through Missouri. Stopped at rest area and got frustrated with the sinks. There were ‘separate’ sensors in the bowl for water, soap, and dryer. It was “wax on wax off” invented by some twisted mind.

Don’t even mention how he could use Apple Pay.

It isn’t really “tapping”. You hold the card over the icon until it beeps. Also it uses a unique one-time code for each transaction so it’s safer.

My old ATM card had a chip but didn’t work with terminals that accepted tapping. The replacement from a couple months ago does.

Biggest issue was for me was expecting “tap” to mean what it means in the real world: “touch and release,” like tapping someone on the shoulder or tapping your fingers on a desk. So I would touch the card to the device, then take it away. I’ve since learned that the tech genius who wrote the documentation thinks that “tap” means “touch the card to the device, leave it there, and if the device doesn’t respond, move the card around until it does.”

Over the last few years I’ve gotten better at tapping, but it was touch and go there (pun fully intended) for a while.

The first time I tried using the Tap feature, I was tapping the card on it several times. The cashier had to explain to me that I have to hold it onto the Tap icon for a several seconds.

“of” ?