What's up?

So what's the deal with receipts. It seems like everywhere I go I'm inundated with paper proof that I purchased something. Like receipts at the gas station. When am I ever going to need to use that receipt? Can you return gasoline if it isn't up to par? I did so fill up my car, look, here's the receipt. Or for instance today I got a diet coke at McDonalds. $1.53. I gave them exactly one dollar fifty three cents, they gave me one medium diet Coke. And a receipt. About a mile long that explained how I might be able to win monopoly if I purchased 2,079 more diet Cokes between now and Nov. 1. A likely scenario. Void where prohibited. Where exactly do they prohibit the purchase of a diet Coke. Because I know for sure I NEVER want to live there. After receiving these nearly meaningless pieces of paper I invariably shove them in some little known pocket of my purse, already a study in disorder, this small wrinkly crinkly addition does nothing to improve affairs. About once every quarter I sit down to clean out my purse. Most often I remove about 3.57 tons of receipts. Approximately one quarter of a rainforest. And a few foil gum wrappers. Even if I wanted to return my diet Coke, how would I ever find the receipt after it disappeared into the abyss that is my purse? I think about 85% of the disorder of the universe can be attributed to receipts. Somehow in todays society we have managed to nearly do away with the need for an individual to carry around any paper money at all. They just slide their neat little plastic cards through some magic machine and presto, no need for money. Why can they not invent a similar machine and card for all receipts. I'd like to return this donut. Well of course I have the receipt. You whip out your plastic proof of purchase card slide it through a magic machine and bingo the record of your pastry purchase appears and you can safely return your donut for one that does not have a hair baked into it. Why all the mess? I of course would invent this gizmo if I had an inkling of how to do it, unfortunately it is far beyond my skills. Somehow we did not cover that in Microbiology.