Tag Archives: ATM

Bottle

Bottle: (n) a container with a narrow neck, used for storing drinks or other liquids.

Kids like money.Dictionary B

I suppose you can try to change that.  Good luck.

Actually, the best you can do–so as not to become a personal ATM for your offspring–is to instruct them on various methods they can use to earn small sums of cash.

When my seven-year-old son came to me complaining that he didn’t have funds to buy a toy, I suggested that he go out and collect bottles. This was a time when such an adventure was plausible, and paid off with two cents per container.

He became extraordinarily industrious. In no time at all, he had collected 268 bottles. He was so proud.

So I drove him down to the local grocery store, which had promised to pay the deposit, and let him go in with a  cart, completely packed to the brim.

He was gone a long time. I almost decided to go in and check up on him, but felt he might consider that interfering.

He finally returned to the car with a little money in his hand and tears in his eyes. He didn’t say a word. So I finally asked him why he was so upset.

He shared that the store manager told him that today they would only give one penny for each bottle. He didn’t want to argue with a grown-up, so he accepted his half payment.

We just sat there for a moment in silence. Finally I asked him, “So what do you feel about that?”

The tears avalanched down his cheeks.

“I think it stinks,” he said.

I explained to him that since he felt that way, he should probably go in and make a stand. He nervously agreed.

Being a proud father, I couldn’t miss this. I made sure he didn’t see me sneak in behind him, but I was bound and determined to catch the discussion.

My little fellow was very respectful, but he challenged the manager and said that he had worked very hard to collect the bottles because he had been promised two cents.

Amazingly, the manager decided to stonewall. But as my boy made his case, a few customers came around, listening in on the exchange. One of them took my son’s side, and before you knew it, there were four or five people frowning at the store manager.

He realized he was going to lose more business than the $2.68 he was withholding. So he reached into the drawer, handed the money to my son and told him to be about his business.

I quickly scurried to the car to be there before he arrived. When he opened the door, he had a big, beaming smile.

He learned to stand up for himself–even though there was the risk that nothing would change. The truth of the matter is, if you’re being cheated by a penny on your bottles, you’d better pipe up.

Because bottling up your feelings can leave some nasty deposits.

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ATM

ATM: (abbr.) An abbreviation for automated teller machine.dictionary with letter A

It is the trifecta of disasters.

  • First of all, anything that’s automated is only of value if it automates.

When it develops personality quirks and fails to deliver its automation, it is annoying beyond all curses of Job.

  • Second, it is a teller.

I don’t need machines lecturing me on my bank account, my balance or charging me fees because I find myself suddenly and haplessly in need of cash. Can there be anything worse than a self-righteous mechanism which knows too much about you?

  • And finally, machine.

There are two things I know about machines:

  1. They can be very helpful.
  2. They break down often and cease to be helpful.

So even though I am a user of these contraptions from time to time, they have also proven themsevles to be adversarial rather than being advocates for my well-being.

When I was younger, I was convinced I could trick them–to get $20 out of them when I only had $19.42 in my account. At that stage of the game the machines would not offer you $10, assuming that anyone who didn’t have $20 should not be pushing anyone’s buttons.

Being priggish, the machine would never give me $20 for my $19.42. The thought was, “Come back when you have money.”

The problem was, of course, I needed money now–so I could make more money.

The not-so-automated, over-telling, pompous machine … was unsympathetic.

 

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Activate

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Activate: (v.) to make something active or operative.

Let me give you a new definition for intelligence: Intelligence is when you find an easier way to do something without sacrificing quality.

Do you remember when they came out with check cards? Or really, at the very beginning, with credit cards? They had a process they used to “activate” your account. Can you recall how ridiculously difficult it was?

It involved remembering some numbers, calling long distance, or driving to your local ATM and punching in something you couldn’t possibly regurgitate. Performing the task was usually followed by discovering that you had left some piece out of the process, leaving you holding your totally useless plastic rectangle.

It’s what I love about this country–discovering the best part of capitalism. That is, creating something, making your money from it as soon as possible and then dropping the price or simplifying the retrieval.

It’s why I would NEVER be the first to buy an I-Phone. I have no desire to be an entomologist. I will let all the first purchasers work out the bugs. I’ll just come along later, when I see signs advertising “New and Improved.”

For instance, I like restaurants that advertise, “Under New Managements.” They’re letting me know that somebody screwed up and that now they’re trying to screw it back down.

  • It would be wonderful at this point in our history if some true leaders and statesmen would appear, to activate our government.
  • If some whimsical, free-thinking theologians would activate our spirituality.
  • If some musical artists would activate our emotional souls.

But for that to happen, complexity will have to be set to the side as we giggle at how foolish it was to make things difficult.

Maybe that’s why I write this daily column–just to activate in each one of us the wisdom that is carried in the power of a single word.