Wednesday, August 26, 2009

John X Wins Dumbass of the Month Award


Several years ago my friend Electric Patti and I drove down to Ft. Worth to have her tattoo re-inked. (Couldn't do it in Oklahoma because it was illegal then.)

When we got there, I found an ATM so I could get some cash and guess what? Somebody had left $ behind! I think it was $20. So, later, I spent the poor bastard's forgotten money on beer for Patti and me.

Fast forward in time and in Cosmic Consequences, and your humble blogger is trying to get some Euros out of a Euro-ATM. The machines work differently here, though. You insert your card, which gets swallowed by the machine. Then you enter your PIN, tell the machine how much money you want, it processes it, spits your card out, then comes the money.

But I forgot all this, not having been here since February...and that forgetfulness bit me in the ass.

First attempt: The machine told me I was asking for too much money---evidently my bank has a limit, no matter how much I may have in my account. Transaction cancelled.

So on the second attempt with a lesser amount, things were going better but then the machine said: Please take your card. It spit out the card and I thought, shit---rejected again. How come this isn't working??? I walked off in a huff....

Later in the week I found another machine. Insert card, enter PIN, ask for money, card gets spit out, money follows. It worked.

And I had a sudden thought: What if, the other day, the second attempt worked and I walked off before the machine spit out the money???

This happened on a weekend so it took my bank until Monday to post the transactions----which showed, sure enough, that John X drank the motherfucking Karmic Kool-Aid and left a crisp new 100 Euro bill in the machine. At the current exchange rate, that means I flushed about $143.00 down the Toilet of Overdue Paybacks.

And now some other lucky guy or gal is spending the money.

I nominated myself for the Dumbass of the Month Award based on this stupidity.

Then I accepted the nomination, then I voted myself the winner.