Apathy Sketchpad

For the last two days I have been trying to get my money out of the small-minded, petty ATM machine in the side of the Yorkshire Bank on Woodsley Road. This is easier said than done. I inserted my card and tried to work out how much I wanted. It started beeping at me and the screen said “Transaction timed out”. Right. But what do you want me to do about it? I can see it’s timed out, but none of the buttons appear to do anything. I pressed cancel, reinserted my card, and asked for £50. Nothing doing. Apparently I could only withdraw £45. That seemed odd, so I checked my balance. Current balance: £286.45. You may withdraw £45. I have a £100 overdraft and a £300 daily withdrawal limit, information which Dr. Idris Ahmed would love to get his hands on. I knew I could withdraw £300, but the machine insisted I could only have £45, so I asked for that. It told me it was unable to process this amount, but gave me no suggestion as to why this might be. I assumed it was a £10 multiple limit, and it allowed me to withdraw £40.

I gave this to Adam to pay for train tickets from the previous weekend, and tried again to get some spending money this afternoon. I asked for £30; it said I could only have five. I asked for five; it said I couldn’t have that amount. So now I have an account full of money, and £6.03 in my wallet which may have to last me the rest of my life.