The ATM controversy is fascinating to watch, from a polite ten to twelve-foot distance with eyes averted, of course.
Nationwide, voters are sick of the $1.50 to $2 surcharges that banks charge non-customers to use ATMs, and they want to outlaw the fees. The banks, which only made $2.1 billion from ATM surcharges last year, are threatening to remove ATMs from handy places like convenience stores, where you can just hand the money directly over to the hooded robber while you’re buying milk, praying-hands refrigerator magnets, and horoscope scrolls.
The whole ATM issue is being dissected endlessly by “consumer watchdogs,” who presumably knock you down and lick your face more often than “consumer watchcats,” who would probably just yawn, stretch, and go back to sleep.
I love going to the ATM, acronym for “Automated Theft Machine.” Where else can you get the adrenaline rush that comes from parking roughly eight blocks away from the ATM—hidden provocatively by lovely shrubs—and then walking back to your dark car with wads of cash in your sweaty little hands?
It’s much safer to use a drive-up ATM.
With drive-ups, you don’t even leave your car. You just pull as close as you can, preferably close enough to add to the black rubber marks left on the side of the machine by the last customer, roll down your window, punch in your PIN, follow the instructions on the screen, and then read that the machine is “temporarily out of service.”
The truth is that most drive-up ATMs are quite snippy about working after hours and holidays. There is roughly a 98.5 percent chance that if you actually need cash after five P.M. Monday through Friday and try to get it from a drive-up ATM, not only will the machine be “temporarily out of service” but also it will laugh loudly at you when you slam your fist down on its useless, stupid keypad in frustration.
There’s not any actual cash inside those gizmos, just a few empty beer bottles and some cigarette butts because, like I told you, they hate working weekends and all they wanna do is “paaar-taaaay!”
Too bad they never work because drive-ups are so much easier. When you use a conventional ATM, you have to use strategy because everybody sits in their car, to be polite, and then nobody knows who got there first. It’s like being at a four-way stop. No one wants to be rude.
Except me. Last week I was able to box out an elderly couple AND a cologne-drenched car salesman with a move that would’ve made Michael Jordan say, “You go, girl!” or, as we say in Español, “You go, chica!”
I mention this because politically correct ATMs now ask if you want to conduct your bidness in English or Spanish. Nice, but it doesn’t go far enough. Why not a Yankeespeak option (“Geez! Whad I godda do to get some money heah? I been waitin’ two, three seconds ahready.”) or a Southern Belle (“Shugah, I’d be evah so pleased if I could have a little itty-bitty bit of my money.”)
Just a thought.