At the ATM

I might as well rant about my other incident this morning. I stopped at the ATM on my way to work to get some cash for the weekend. Apparently so did everyone else since today is pay day. The bank proper opens up at 8:30. I was there five minutes before that. Half of the people were waiting to enter the bank, the others were loosely on line to use the ATM’s. There are five machines there.

There’s a woman in line ahead of me. I think she’s on line to use the ATMs. There about eight people milling about the vestibule. The next ATM frees up and a guy who came in after me walks up to it. The woman in front of me made no move toward the free ATM.

The next ATM opens up and I start passing her thinking she’s waiting to get into the bank and half-heartedly ask her if she’s waiting for a machine. She says, “Excuse me.” I just let it slide off my back, not knowing what was going to happen at the deli. I should have said, “I didn’t think you were in line for the machine because you let that other guy cut right in front of you.” Didn’t this happen to George on Seinfeld where he thought of good things to say seconds after it was too late?

To cap this story, I tried to take out $60 from the machine. These are not intelligent ATMs because they spit the record out before they give you the cash. So I get the record. Minus $60 from checking. Great. Then the machine churns for a half a minute. No cash, but a message on the screen something like, “Sorry we are unable to dispense any cash at this time.”

I’m thinking they deducted $60 from my account but didn’t give me the cash. This is going to be a good morning. And they don’t have any phones next to the ATMs like they have in Citibank. I logged back in to check my balance and sure enough it was the proper amount, not minus the $60. I then took the money out from one of the other machines.

I should have stopped while I was behind and forgotten about breakfast at that point. Obviously, I’m not good at reading signs.