DRIVE-THROUGH-LESS BANKING OF THE FUTURE IS NOW

When I think of jobs being lost to automation, the drive-through industry doesn't come readily to mind.  Seriously, though, who doesn't love driving right through life without having to stop (except for an occasional potty break)?

In addition to the obvious drive-through industry (fast food and coffee), there is also the drive-through wild-life sanctuary industry.  Between those extremes, I hear that some places have drive-through liquor stores, drive-through registries, even drive-through funeral homes (which is probably one of the most fabulous ideas of all time for those of us who despise the smell of lilies and who tend to giggle at death).  I kind of see the drive-through industry as one of those necessities that probably should be expanding.   

Apparently, though, my bank does not.  With the onslaught on online banking and cyber bill-paying, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  Even the juggernauts like Bank of America and Toronto-Dominion Bank are starting to close branches.  But, really.  Wouldn't banks like to keep their drive-through service going?  I mean, if they're worried about customer service and volume, forcing people out of their cars to become foot traffic is not the way to go.

And yet ... my bank is closing the drive-through lanes.  Permanently closing.  Everything is going digital.

Honestly, this idea fucking sucks.

Oh, sure, the ATM's will still be working.  Let's really tempt bandits, thieves, and other malcontents now that anyone using the former-drive-through-now-only-money-dispensing-machine will be out there in the wild, wild west of tarred parking lots just waiting to be robbed.  Well, everyone, that is, except for me.

About two years ago my debit card got hacked.  This is not a tragedy as I am poor, which means that the culprit probably took one look at my bank account and tried to start a Go-Fund-Me page in my honor.  But the hassle of cutting everything up and contacting creditors and getting the bank to clean up the mess became one giant clusterfuck fiasco.  So, when the bank issued me a new debit card, I cancelled it and put it through the shredder.

After all, I have checks.  I can write myself checks, go cash them at the drive-through, and then I pay cash for everything except bills.  This is a win-win because the card will not get hacked again, I won't be a sitting duck at an ATM, and the government cannot possibly trace my spending (unless I use a discount coupon or card linked to my name). 

I am at the bank drive-through waiting to cash a check when I see The Sign.  The Sign says life will be almost exclusively digital starting in February.  My cash, it seems, will no longer be acceptable tender without a pound of flesh and a few ounces of plasma.  My new options will be the ATM (nope, no debit card), a mobile app (nope, nothing that important goes into my phone), or online banking (to see my balances, fine, but to put money in and take it out ... no).  Of course, there's always face-to-face, until, of course, that goes by the wayside. 

I suddenly have a flashback to the one and only time I shopped at Ikea.  I waited in a very long line to pay for some toys and a salad spinner, and was told Ikea doesn't accept cash.  Oh, one line does, but I wasn't in it.  There was no sign declaring it so, but still. 

Who the hell doesn't accept real cash anymore?

Then I encountered store cashiers who had not been trained to handle ... wait for it ... cash.  It was like a major event as cashiers and managers bustled around at crisis levels.  "Quick, for the love of god," they screamed over the loudspeaker, "someone find an employee, anyone at all, even the cleaning crew scrubbing the toilets, please, find someone who knows what to do with a ten dollar bill!  Wait, one-zero is ten ... right?????"

I guess starting in February I will have to get out of my car and actually interact with humans face to face, at least until those clerks are replaced by automation and the entire bank vaporizes and goes digital.  Until then, I can still enjoy driving through to get a Dunks coffee to take with me to the drive-through safari after I pick up my drive-through beer, which is next door to my drive-through pharmacy that's next to the drive-through funeral home so I can also pay my respects to my dead bank. 

Pray for me.  I'm willing to bet you can do it at a drive-through church, so it's all good.

BUTT ON FIRE

Usually when my butt is on fire it's because I ate something that disagrees with my stomach.  Occasionally (once every five years) my butt might be on fire from colonoscopy prep.  However, generally speaking, my butt is reasonable and usually behaves itself when it comes to things like matches and fireplaces and other catastrophic, flammable situations.

Perhaps these life experiences add to the confusion of my recent ride to work.

Let me give some background.  The first time I ever encountered heated car seats was in my sister's old Volvo station wagon en route to my grandmother's house.  Between us we were traveling from Maine to Rhode Island at night, with me dragging my kids along, to go to my grandmother's house after she had died.  It was late in the evening, and I was fairly certain that I didn't have to pee, but suddenly my bottom was warm and slightly uncomfortable.

Since I have zero filter (and since I'd have to get kids out of a dangerous situation), I said to my sister, "Is your car on fire?"

This comment almost caused a massive accident on I-95 as she started checking her side and rear mirrors searching for errant flames shooting from the undercarriage.

"No, no," I explained to her.  "My butt's warm." 

Heated seats. 

Now, though, I am totally used to heated seats.  My car even has a driver's side heated lower back portion to the seat.  Once in a while while driving along with my butt cheeks completely and totally toasty, I flash back to that initial moment when I first thought that seat heaters in cars felt like peeing on a closed toilet seat.  Now, I consider them gifts from the mechanical gods.

(Smokeless seat heater is ON.)

The weather here in New England has been a bit like a seesaw this winter.  Sometimes it is icy cold in the morning then forty degrees by the afternoon; sometimes the wind cuts through like icy death.  I alternate between a fuzzy jacket zipped to my nose on my way to work, to a sweater and the windows open for the ride home. 

Every morning, though, I heat up the driver's seat before I head out.  If not for my butt then at least my lower back will be comfortable.  On this particular morning, it's cold, single digits, but the air is still and calm.  It's frigid but not unbearable, so I leave the seat heater on all the way to work rather than shutting it off halfway there when the temperature in the car becomes tolerable. 

I am driving along, radio cranking, seat heater cranking, when I smell smoke.  "Ahhhhhhhhh," I say to myself, "the sweet smell of someone's fireplace."

Except that the smell doesn't go away.  I know that once an aroma enters a car, it takes a short while for the smell to dissipate.  It seems to linger a little too long, though.  I open the window a little bit to discover if the smoky smell is coming from something bigger and more serious that a passing chimney.  Nope, no smell in the outside air, but, as I close the window, I can still smell the smoke as strongly as I did a minute or so earlier.

I start to panic.  Is my car on fire?  I check the side and rear mirrors.  Nope, no tell-tale orange glow anywhere.  I concentrate on the hood to see if maybe I might have an engine fire.  Everything looks good.  I check the dashboard for any signs, signals, or messages that indicate a problem, but I find nothing amiss other than the incessant smoky stench wafting around the car.  This is when I remember that my seat heater is on. 

Good gawd, I must've set my butt on fire!

This thought consumes me for about ten seconds before I realize that maybe, just maybe, my mind is playing tricks on me and maybe I really don't smell the fire any longer.  Perhaps it was just an exceptionally smoky fire that made its way through the air and into the vents of my car on this crisp morning.  Indeed, though my butt is comfy warm, it is not, I repeat, NOT on fire.

This is a relief for many reasons.  First of all, no one wants to have a car fire, especially if the driver is still in the car.  Second, I won't have to explain errant burn marks on my butt cheeks to anyone, least of all a local firefighter who is probably a parent of a student in my class.  Third, I won't have to openly admit what an idiot I am thinking that I set my butt on fire on the way to work (except, of course, that I am doing so right this moment).

BRING ON THAT SNOW

It's January 13th, and still we are snow-less. 

Oh, sure, we had some snow that caused us to push the shovel along the driveway to get to our cars without having to actually put on boots, but it was pretty much melted by the end of the day, as if it had never snowed at all.  Twice this week it snowed lightly on the way to work, and both times the snow was totally gone by the afternoon, never once sticking to the road for longer than an hour. 

Meanwhile, my snowshoes are hanging in the basement, waiting for somewhere to go.

I know what will happen; I know how this will end. 

I am planning a trip on a plane in a few weeks.  I haven't bought the tickets yet, but I will very soon.  I am going to give myself one day lead time, which means an extra day of hotel and car rental, just in case a major storm moves in.  This way I'll either beat the storm, or, with any luck at all, give myself enough hours to book another flight and still make it to my destination.

Yup, I am giving myself the lead time because (since I am cursing the lack of snow here) I am quite certain that a major blizzard will affect my one and only major travel plans this season.  It's my luck and it's my destiny as I sit here cursing the icy wind outside that is so very cold it ices the nose and ears the moment I step outside.  "Snot freezing weather," we always called it as kids (and still call it now) because even the runniest of noses freezes solid when it's zero or below either by temperature or by wind chill (or, even worse, both).

So, if in a few weeks we get the world's worst blizzard that lasts for days and days and days and grounds all air traffic for hundreds of miles and as many hours, YOU MAY ALL BLAME ME.  Yes, you certainly may, because:

I WANT SNOW, AND I WANT IT RIGHT NOW. 

Honestly, it's January and it's New England and the ground is brown and boring.  Bring it, Ma Nature.  I'm waiting and waiting and waiting, but my patience truly is running thin.

DUCK AND COVER: HELIAND'S EPIPHANY AND VERBAL KATANA

It's Epiphany.

I have always known that there are Twelve Days of Christmas -- many of us learned the song as children, and, despite exhaustive singings of it, still cannot remember the exact items post eight maids-a-milking.  Each item has a religious significance, as well as just being downright fun.  Seriously.  Who wouldn't want five new gold rings, eight days in a row?

I could retire on that shit.

I want to start a tradition of celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas, either with gifts or with food (or with wine, because, hey, why not), so I start the research and soon discover that many of these Twelve Days are not necessarily celebrations.  Some of these days are hideously dark and sinister.

I struggle with this reality for a bit because I am loosely UCC Protestant, borderline Agnostic, and deeply connected to my childish Christmas fantasies of light and love and laughter.  But, the truth is it's impossible to have Epiphany without adversity.

As 2018 closes and 2019 starts, I have my own epiphany.

For most of my life people have said to me and about me that I speak whatever comes to my mind.  Folks, that is NOT true.  I actually only speak about half -- probably more like a third -- of what pops into my head.  If people knew the totality and the reality of what's truly going on in my brain, I'd get punched in the face.  A lot.  A whole lot.

Believe it or not (many of you will be disbelievers, and this is your final warning), my epiphany is that I may speak up about many issues and problems (I am The Champion of Underdog and Others), but I rarely speak up for myself.  I often will think of an amazing comeback or cutting response to something twelve minutes, twelve hours, or even twelve days after the fact.

Worse than that, sometimes I am so shocked by something said about me, said to me, or done to me, that I miss my perfect opportunity to react because my mind is completely blockaded with the struggle all intelligent, polite people go through under such conditions; the "WAIT -- IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING TO ME RIGHT NOW?!" response.

It's kind of like those few moments when your mind sees an accident and starts calculating severity while debating, albeit rapidly, whether or not to dial 9-1-1.  Speaking of 9-1-1, folks -- this is your ONLY warning: I am training my mouth to work as fast as my brain, and my brain to work as fast as my mouth.

In other words, I am walking around with a proverbial longsword (probably basket-hilted so I don't drop it accidentally).  I'm still not completely adept with it.  In three days I lopped off three heads -- two at the gas company and one at work -- and I made quick and bloodless business out of all three.  However, one lopping took me twenty-four hours to execute, and now I am beating myself up for not doing it publicly.  (To my victim -- you're welcome.)

Of course, my past training has served me well: berating people who don't acknowledge good deeds with a blatant "You're WELCOME" as I'm being ignored, or shooting the car's high beams back at ignorant offenders coming the other way, or rolling my eyes at ridiculously unprofessional commentary at meetings and conferences (for which I will no longer apologize nor play dumb).

I will, however, continue to practice my verbal sword-wielding skills.  I may accidentally lop off undeserving limbs of both my opponents and/or myself because, at my age, I'm not as spry as I used to be.  The best thing about Verbal Katana, though, is that eventually most of the limbs regenerate -- possibly deformed or possibly rejuvenated correctly, maybe even improved.

Rarely is a verbal assault of my level actually deadly.  However, I guarantee I will leave scars -- my own, yes, but, more importantly, yours.  You've been warned, 2019.  I'm out for blood, and the very second I see it, hear it, feel it, taste it, smell it, or sense it, I WILL CUT YOUR HEAD OFF AT THE JUGULAR.