Filed under: Cash Machines Turn 40
This week the ATM Machine turns 40. And alls it asked for was a $2.50 service fee and an additional $2 because it’s a non Wells Fargo ATM.
The 40-year-old doesn’t get out much these days, but remembers fondly its beginnings on a North London street corner, and the sweet-sweet satisfaction it recieved after pumping out two tenners.
“Alright, mate?” said the ATM to its first customer/victim. “Care for a bitta’ cash for de day?”
To which everyone who saw/heard the bloody thing was scared shitless of it the first time. But within a year, 700 had popped up across Ingaland, and eventually – needless to say – the world.
P.S. The inventor of the ATM Machine, who said he came up with the idea for the word “PIN” because that was his wife’s nickname, not an acronym for Personal Identification Number, said that money will soon be replaced by mobile phones.
Tangent: Can you imagine a cash-free world … only an aristocratic ATM inventor can even dream such a farce. Cash was invented in America, was’t it? Is the note an American idea? In a cash free world there would be no drug deals, no sweaty, stinky dollar bills, no fake 20 bills with an advertisement underneath, no taking time to look for the “spiders” and the “burning world trade centers” on one- and twenty-dollar American bills, respectively. Perhaps in a cash-free world rich people would purchase a yacht and then trade it for drugs. A free-market, global barter system will run roughshod through the economy. “Cash replaced by cell phones” is just not a plausible headline I see in the near future.
In this writer’s largely cash-free opinion, ATM machines are a necessary evil. Have you been in a bank lately, the teller do not greet you with a smile on their face … they actually look a bit sketchy. And yes, my dumb ass doesn’t come prepared with my account numbers and this author/Rhodes Scholar cannot manage to properly fill out the totals on the deposit slip. I’ve had a bank account for 10 years and I still feel like an imbicile (sp? Nice. I probably spelled imbicile wrong cause I’m too lazy to Google it.).
So, again, ATM Machines are a necessary evil, but are nicer, perhaps more trustworthy than people. They’re automated, but don’t call them that because it’ll just hurt their feelings. Just wish them a happy birthday, and get out of line you slowpoke.
