(Automatically) Tell Me About It!
March 29th, 2006
Last Wednesday, at the Washington Mutual ATM on Bleecker:
Really, ATM? Was it completely wild?
My response to the ATM’s predicament also happens to be the next command I selected: “Sure.” I said it out loud in a sarcastic tone, for dramatic effect and to make the ATM feel self-conscious. Next time someone tried to take out cash, it probably said “(Some bitch was just mean to me!)”
Though I appreciate the ATM’s candor, I don’t buy that its day has been crazier than any human’s. What’s the worst that could have happened to an ATM? Someone got over-enthusiastic with the poking? Cry me a river. A river of twenties.
Given the ATM’s apparent penchant for opening up to customers, we should prepare for other potential parenthetical quips. Such as:
(This dude just hacked phlegm all over me!)
(I’m totally PMSing right now. NO DEAL!)
(My breath reeks — Please slide a stick of gum into my slot!)
(You’re famous! I’m tattling on you to Gawker Stalker!)
(I’m so wasted!)
(No one keeps their fucking receipts anyway. I can see them throw them out right in front of me. What is up with that? A little respect!)
It would actually be pretty funny if you could click an on-screen button for the “full story,” and it would basically be the ATM’s whiny soapbox blog about all the customers. If it made up humorous nicknames for said customers, I could read that for hours. I’d also watch a film shot entirely from inside an ATM screen. People’s facial expressions, outfits, and various levels of pissed-off New York haste would probably make for an okay movie. Okay to have on in the background, that is. Or if there were suddenly no other movies left on the planet. Then it would be awesome.
Since when are people and ATMs supposed to engage in chit-chat? Despite my lifelong fetish for inanimate objects (snowmen, heffalumps, my DVR/life partner, broken neon signs), I much prefer it when the IOs don’t sass-mouth me back. Upper hand. It’s important.
If I started writing about Top Model, would anyone read it?
If I asked a question to the dark, early-morning abyss of cyberspace and no one was there to hear it, did I really ask the question?
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