The ATM's Story (L)

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Many people probably think an ATM is just a soulless metal box, a banknote gobbler that dreams only of deducting as much money from you as possible, without even letting you hold it. You're wrong! An ATM knows people well. It recognizes many by face, not just by card number. It can talk to your smartphone, and some even understand your voice.

Actually, when an ATM's belly is stuffed with cash, it can be very kind—even generous. Want $2,000? Sure. It'll rustle and creak, and suddenly you're the proud owner of crisp new bills, and it feels as if it kept that money just for you. "Step right up! Who else needs these colorful little notes?!"—it winks its green eye like a carnival barker.

But if nobody pays attention to it for a long time, it starts to get bored, even offended. "Surely someone needs my money, which I've been keeping in my belly for so long?" the ATM thinks. That means the good fellows won't be coming soon to open my belly and let all my insides get some air. And I also love listening to their tall tales about my other iron brothers and their troubles—who doesn't want to "get up," who has connection issues, who can't get repaired for ages. So we don't always manage to please our clients, even though our work is needed and responsible! On payday people line up in long queues to bow down to us, and we merrily chirp with banknotes to the delight of our fans!

And how nice it is when, after pulling out the empty cassettes, they insert new ones with bills that still smell of ink, and you feel rich and needed again, generously handing out your treasures left and right. "We don't take cards," says the cashier, pointing in our direction. "Go to the ATM!"—meaning me! And then I become the navel of the earth, a lifesaving magic wand.

And sometimes this happens too. Some dude comes up and starts emptying my belly. "Give, give, give me more!" he asks. I'll gather from every cassette, I'll scrape the bottom of the barrel, but he just keeps saying "give" and "give"—he should go to the bank himself with a shovel and scoop out as much as he wants. But no, they come over to me as if my money were smeared with honey.

Oh, the things I've heard when I suddenly couldn't give someone those colorful wrappers! I won't even retell it. I'm sure you've cursed me like that too, maybe worse. Maybe everyone thinks I'm just a piece of metal and can't hear, or see, or understand? Then why do you write complaints about me to my owners? Do you want to hurt my feelings?!

But not all visitors are that angry. Sometimes an old woman or an old man comes up, twirls the card by their nose, and just can't insert it. "Sweetie, how do I stick the card in?" the granny asks pleadingly. "Just tap it here," a girl passing by suggests. The granny taps the card, takes a long time remembering her PIN, and finally asks for $5.

After getting the bank's response, blushing with shame, I inform her that she doesn't even have $5 right now. The granny sighs and, limping, dissolves into the flow of life. Those are the ones I really feel sorry for. After working her whole life, scraping together money for medicine and food, just a few days before her pension she doesn't even have $5 left for bread—and I have to tell her so rudely: "Insufficient funds!" Funds for existence, or just for a good time? Sometimes I want to shout: wait, kind soul, maybe some scoundrel will drop a couple of bills from his thick wad that I'll have to give him...

Or early in the morning, a student with a beer comes up and starts poking me in the face: give me $1,000, $100, finally—$2. He thinks I'm like him, "resting" after 11 p.m., and maybe I'll fulfill his request. But no, I don't "rest," day or night, and however much I'd hate to upset him, I have to refuse, because he spent his $30–50 stipend on the very first day and has already forgotten about it.

And sometimes it's like this: a person comes up, and the camera shows he's a good, kind man, smiling, he just wants to withdraw $10 for flowers for his girlfriend—and then bam, I also flash red: "Sorry, cash withdrawal is temporarily unavailable for technical reasons!" But the most unpleasant thing is that the money has already been debited from him, and maybe that was his last $10 before payday, and I, the clumsy fool, couldn't dispense it properly.

Of course, it's my fault—who doesn't have that happen? But at moments like that I learn so many new expressions that I could sit down and write a dictionary of folk sayings in every language in the world! Most often, of course, people remember my mother, but honestly, nobody gave birth to me—I was assembled from various parts—so I don't take that personally and listen without offense. But the more advanced ones talked about crooked hands and heads that grow below the waist, and that, excuse me, is a direct insult to my designers and programmers, and it causes me emotional suffering.

If all their cursing and maledictions came true, I'd have been sent to scrap metal long ago, and my owners would have had to walk in a well-known direction for a very long time. You hear all sorts of things from these seemingly cultured, educated clients of the 21st century. So please, next time you come up to His Majesty the ATM, treat it like an ordinary person who always tries to help you but doesn't always succeed. Don't swear, don't kick it, and don't expect miracles from the ATM. Just imagine that in front of you sits a pretty cashier girl who, smiling and purring, will try to give you exactly as many kisses as you have money on your card—but not a single kiss more! Love ATMs, and they will love you back! :)