- What stood out to you in the readings about them?
While perusing the readings, what stood out to me the most was an evolution of not only receipts themselves, but also prices via inflation. You can’t help but compare these prices to today, it’s even a fun pastime if you find complaining to be entertaining. Of course, the receipts about cheap hospital bills and tuition are interesting, but what caught my eye was the price for an 8 piece mozzarella stick at Burger King (where the receipt was printed on subway paper). I worked at a Burger King, and the price was 4.44. Inflation is insane. Anywho, I think that the evolution of receipts is very interesting as a concept, especially when you think about the impermanence of modern receipts. We still have receipts from thousands of years ago, but what about modern history? How will we be remembered economically without transaction information as permanent as they had long ago?
- Talk about your personal experience with them.
I have many old receipts that I keep due to the memories that they hold. I have multiple Japanese receipts from my time living in Japan, receipts from my first date with my boyfriend, and other such receipts that hold great importance to me. I have often handled receipts on the cashier end of things, usually being the one that people yell at if they don’t get their receipt for their 4 dollar food order. It’s crazy how the same receipt can be so important to one person but not cared about in the slightest for another person.
This article is about something that I thought about in class when we were discussing ancient receipts. I learned about this story of one of the world’s oldest customer complaints, one made in cuneiform to the copper merchant Ea-nāșir.
