My wife and I had dinner at a very nice restaurant last night, and after I requested a bill from our waiter, I watched him go to a CRT, tap on the screen several times, and then tear off the freshly printed, itemized and totaled bill from a small printer. Every item we ordered was neatly printed, with the price clearly stated. The tax was calculated, printed and added to the total.

I added a gratuity amount to the bill and tendered it with my credit card, which the waiter gingerly inserted into a mag-card reader, along with the total of the bill tapped into a small numeric keyboard. The modem dialed, connected, and apparently found on some database somewhere that not only was the card valid, but the account had sufficient credit to cover the total. Another printout, fetched by the waiter and inserted neatly into a leather folder with a pen, was presented to me.

A few weeks later, I received my monthly invoice from the credit card company. I logged onto my bank's online banking service, selected bill payment, and requested that the amount due be transferred from my checking account directly to the credit card company.

When my checking account statement arrived in the mail sometime thereafter, there was the credit card payment, listed as a debit against my account, with the balance correctly calculated.

So big deal. It's most likely that nothing I've described here is either new to or out-of-the-ordinary for anyone reading this page. It's possible that some of you were waiting for the "blip" in the tale, the mistake, the miscalculation. But there was none. Although it may seem so, it's not the technology itself that I'm pointing out.

It's our easy acceptance of this and all the small but growing number of advances that have flooded our everyday lives that I'm onto. After thinking about this threaded process, it became clear to me just how blase we've become about computer-based technological improvements (although for some "improvements" is a matter of opinion). At most, we may utter a phrase such as "Hey - that's cool" when we experience something like this. What's advancing is not only the technology, but our ability to assimilate it without a blink.

Visiting a very popular local movie theater, I was recently confronted by an outrageous number of people waiting to buy tickets. While standing at the end of the line, hoping I would make the show on time, I noticed a machine on a nearby wall with a screen, a mag-card reader, and one simple word emblazoned on it: "TICKETS". I walked over, touched the screen where it said "Touch Here to Begin", and sure enough, it led me through a dialogue that allowed me to buy my tickets and pay with my credit card. As I withdrew the freshly printed tickets and signaled my daughter to leave the line, I saw the expressions on others who had been watching me. As you might expect, dozens of others left the line and headed for the machine and another like it on the other side of the lobby. Instant advance in lifestyle. No questions, no doubt, no hesitancy.

Except, of course, for those unhappy kids who didn't have credit cards...

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