I went to the cash machine Friday, the one in town that charges me three extra dollars to withdrawn my cash from it because it is not my cash machine, and do you know what? I’m glad it’s not my cash machine, because I hate it. At the last bank where I used to stand regularly in line to deal with a teller, more than a decade ago, one of the tellers was a very beautiful woman, tall and slender and with a noticeable patch of hair on her chin, long dark hairs which she did not pluck or shave. This little beard ennobled her. I think of her, pretty and bearded, particularly as I grow hairier with age. Anyway, there was a line at the cash machine I hate, and I saw this and went and left the groceries in my car, but when I came back the line was exactly the same as it was when I passed by the first time. I took my place at the end of the line. There was only one machine in the room, and the woman at the machine was speaking loudly while she banked. She was saying, “One small container of creamed spinach. One small container of orzo salad. One small container of roasted potatoes.” And so on. Eventually, and slightly before completing her order—she went over to the little banking table and stood there, fitting her money into her wallet while she continued to order, then brushed past me holding the phone to her mouth—she left us. I was hoping that at this moment the woman in front of me, a stranger to me, and I would cross the line that separated us entirely from each other, and share an eye roll. In fact I expected this, and waited for the woman to shift a little and initiate the eye roll with me, but she did not, she stared straight ahead, and waited her turn at the machine. The woman ahead of her went, then she went, then I went. The reason, by the way, that I hate this bank machine is that the machine never allows you to chose Yes or No for your answers. You can only chose Sure, or No Thanks. Would you like to see your balance? Sure! Do you need a receipt? No Thanks!

I would never say Thanks to a machine. The machine can say Thanks to me, if it has to, but that is where the politesse should end. Another thing I think about this machine, and I do think about this stupid machine, is that if someone were going to program a bank machine to speak, so to speak, in the vernacular, why stop with Sure? Why not go all the way to Hell Yeah? This bank will charge you three dollars in addition to whatever your bank is going to charge you for this transaction. Do you want to continue? Fuck No should be a choice. Oh, I know that it was a person, somewhere, who programmed this irritating machine, and so in the end, it’s not the machine I have issues with, it’s people. Yes. It is. Machines are empty, binary, useful things. People wear beards, or should.