Annoying Time Murderers

Once upon a time, visiting banking halls was a perilous endeavour. The branches were few and far between, overly crowded and impossibly bogged down by procedural bureaucracy that it was often wise to clear out a couple of days in your calendar for the simple matter of visiting your money. And that’s not even during school fees season. Who am I kidding? It’s still like that today!

Anyway, some bright chap somewhere stumbled upon the solution of creating a faceless machine slotted into a hole in the wall. This would allow normally functioning human beings to insert a card, type their pin, withdraw their cash and leave with a receipt all within the space of 60 seconds. In fact, I believe the original script of the Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie blockbuster, Gone in 60 Seconds, was based on this magnificent concept. However the idea was derided as being far too fictitious for an average cinema-goer to believe since the majority of us have never actually witnessed a normally functioning human being using an ATM!

A watched pot never boils...

I mean seriously! What the hell are you doing at the damn machine?! Is there a new video game installed in the ATMs that I don’t know about, as part of the banks’ public relations programme? Perhaps, I’m behind the times and there’s a hack to access Facebook from the ATM? That would sure explain why some of you can arrive after a visit from the salon and leave just in time for your next hair appointment! And don’t get me started on those guys who put in the card, transact, take it out, then put it back in, transact, take it out, put it back, transact, take it out, etc ad nauseam!

Good grief! I think there should be a time limit on the ATM cards so that if you spend longer than 60 seconds (okay 75 for some of you slower ones), then your card is swallowed and you are forced into the banking hall. I mean, I started typing this blog after the guy in front of me punched in his pin code and he’s still not finished!!

PS: Please stop calling them ATM machines. ATM is an acronym for Automated Teller Machine. Which means you’re actually calling it an Automated Teller Machine Machine.