I say ‘thank you’ to cashpoints.
And I say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to Alexa.
I think that being polite.
Even to electrical appliances.
Is important.
The Past.
Thanking cashpoints.
In actual fact.
Goes back to my student days.
But back then I was not saying:
Thank you.
I was saying:
Thank God!
That it gave me some money at all.
So I could go to the pub.
Cheating Cashpoints.
And this was a thing, too.
In my mind at least.
A thing that I used to do was to try to cheat cashpoints.
I used to withdraw (say) £20.
Knowing that that would take me right to my overdraft limit.
Then run.
As fast as I could.
To another cashpoint.
And try to withdraw another £20.
Before the bank’s ‘central brain’ (whatever that was) had cottoned on.
Then, if I managed to get my £40.
I’d feel great!
Because I’d won.
(Even though I hadn’t.
As I found out when the Bank Manager called me in to meet him.
Yes, they used to have time to meet you face-to-face.
And yes, they were almost always a ‘him’).
Weird.
It was weird trying to cheat cashpoints as a teenager.
And it’s weird saying thank you to cashpoints as a 50 year old.
Thank goodness some things never change.
