Just To Start My Day Right: Murphy's Law

What a morning. I had an appointment to have $1,000 worth of work done on my car today.  I was to bring the car in at 8am so that they could have it done by the end of the day.  No big deal, right?

Wrong.  I decided it would be nice to just pay cash.  Why?  I don't know.  I wish I could figure out why I thought that would be advantageous, but I can't. I hopped in the car to go to the ATM machine at the bank.  Again, no big deal.

Ah, but it was.  "Murphy" was with me this moring. As I pulled in, I noticed that an armored truck was there servicing the ATM machine.  That's cool.  No big deal. There I sat until another car got behind me.  Now I could not turn around. After about ten minutes the truck pulled away.  I am not sure what all they do to ATM's but I am pretty sure there must be quite a few things to check over.  Confident that all was well, I pulled in.

I tried to get $1,000 but the machines won't let you get that much.  Those machines must be the only place left in the world where $1,000 still means a lot of money.  I decided to still get some cash.  My cash got belched out and I waited to get my card.  Hmmmm......like I said, I waited......

The screen had froze.  It kept asking me to enter an amount.  Of course, since I had taken the maximum I could take, whatever I typed in was rejected.  Then it would ask again.  I tried to cancel.  No dice.  This machine was having none of that.  Ask for some money, dammit!  Over and over I tried to cancel, tried to enter any amount at all, just to get the screen to do something. Hey, even if smoke started coming out it would have been progress.

The guy behind me started to impatient.  I know what he was thinking.  Dumb broad can't even work an ATM.  I was pulled so close to the machine (so that the world would not see my password as I typed it) that I could not stick my head out.  Finally I yelled out the window, "The machine is stuck and won't give me back my card!"  He got the message and peeled into reverse.

I drove around and parked in the lot so that I could go in.  Of course, the bank doors were locked.  Sigh. Getting back in, blood pressure now 200 over 115 I drove up to the teller window in the drive through.  After explaning what had happened, she told me that my card was now shredded because I drove away!  That automatically happens. Huh?  What was I supposed to do?  Sit there and order flowers for the ATM?  Sing soft love songs in hopes that  it would soften up and release my key to the financial world?

A new card is ordered but it takes a week.  She "said" I would keep my same number.  We will see.  Oh, and she said she would not charge me for it.  Really?  You won't charge me for this exhilarating experience with technology?  Oh, gee, how very generous of you. 

I got to the appontment late, but all is well.  Surgery is being performed on my car, my blood pressure is back to normal, and I am ready to continue writing the first darft of the third book in my series.

Maybe I should try to get ahold of Stephen King.  He wrote about a possessed car named Christine.  He could give me some pointers for a horror story about a sociopathic ATM on Suburban Av. in St Paul, MN.