the world has turned and left me here

next customer, next customer

After the Cards Mets game (go Cards!) I need to pay my bill at the bar. I go next door to McDonald's, which has the closest ATM. The grease fumes nearly overwhelm me.

Then to top it off the ATM makes a noise like its doing something and then promptly moves on to the "new transaction" screen. Uh-oh I think: I've had this happen before when the so-called "transaction" wasn't so transactional. Well the debit from my account is transactional, but it's not atomic with the handing me of actual physical money, or a receipt.

So, beligerent sports fan that I am, I give the machine a sound kick. Instantly this rouses a gaggle of torporous McDonald's employees from their group chat behind the corner, and into action. Or rather, into more meaningless chatter, this time directed at me. "Uh-uh, whatchoo be doin that for over there?"

I had unwittingly just launched myself into Jerry Springer land. I ran with it. We go back and forth for a while.

"I'm just trying to get your attention. You need to put a sign on this thing if it doesn't work, you shouldn't just let people use it."

"Mmm-mmm, Mmm-mmm, next customer," (to the next guy in line), "sir, sir, can I help you sir..."

"Alright whatever, listen, lemme ask you, how would you feel if a machine just stole 100 bucks from you?" I hoped that one would hit home. Nope.

"Call the number, there's a number right there on the machine."

"Ok but this is going to be a huge waste of my time, do you understand? I will spend way more than $100 of my time dealing with this. That $100 is just gone now. Why didn't you put a sign up?"

"Next customer, next customer."

Etc. So I go get a pen from the bar and come back to write down the number. She comes over and is buzzing around me like a fly, shoving their newly crafted "out of order" sign in my face.

I look down at the ATM and see a Win2k bootup screen.