Upon waking up yesterday, I decided that I wanted to have a Double- Decker on my way to work.
And, yes, I know I said ‘have’ and not ‘take’ a double- decker; I was referring to the calorie- bomb chocolate bar and not the monster of a bus.
As my detour to Tesco’s meant that I would be late for work, I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to take out some cash from an ATM and use it to pay the said chocolate bar so that I could save some time.
With a swift cowboy- like movement, I took out my debit card, shoved it into the ATM, punched in my PIN and took out my tenner.
Getting the bar was, in itself, a piece of cake (no lame joke intended): I walked in, grabbed the bar, went to the tills, smiled (with a rather unsettling air of urgency) at the cashier, handed him the tenner, took my change and the bar and departed with inhuman alacrity.
At the time, I actually felt rather proud of myself as I managed to do all of the above AND eat the chocolate bar in less than six minutes and twenty- three seconds; AND I wasn’t late for work.
At work, I started wondering whether it wouldn’t be a good idea to go out for lunch and treat myself to a nice meal.
Now, you would think that the above was quite normal; a lush lunch was something that everyone was entitled to indulge in every once in awhile.
Well, not so if you had already bought a tonne of food to have at your desk; a tonne of food which would go bad if not consumed in a week’s time.
And I’m not talking about your average tins here, believe you me; I’m talking about so much food that several of my colleagues have warned me that opening a restaurant in the lunch area of the office without seeking my employer’s permission will undoubtedly violate the terms of my employment contract.
(As you might appreciate, I was obliged to acknowledge the above ‘joke’ with a polite giggle.)
Regardless of the feast that awaited me in the fridge, however, I did decide to go out and have a proper meal. Now, if I had no cash on me, I would not have even dreamed of doing that.
Why?
Well, it most probably has something to do with the fact that I have always found the take-your-card-out-now-put-it-in-the-machine-not-that-way-the-other-way-around-now-enter-your-pin-now-take-it-out-and-put-it-back-in-your-wallet routine rather long- winded and somewhat tedious.
In time, I’ve found out that having to pay for something on card often deters me from buying it; if, however, I have cash on me, I normally don’t think twice, especially so if I have a lot of coins that I so desperately want to get rid of.
Anywho, back to my lush lunch; as you can probably imagine, £ 9, 50 was not enough to get me a proper lunch and it so happened that I had to go to yet another ATM and withdraw some more cash to pay for my meal as, surprise, surprise, the establishment did not accept card payments of less than £ 30.
Thank God, the nearest ATM was ten minutes away and I did not have to make the waitress wait for a good twenty- five minutes, eh…?
The moral of the story?
No moral, really; just general ranting.
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