Yesterday I met the ATM Machine Monster. We wouldn’t have met him, if it wasn’t for wifey’s set of cushion-covers!
A couple of months ago, wifey bought a set of cushion-covers of an odd size. She’s been trying to buy cushions to fill those covers, but without much success. So yesterday, she took the momentous decision of getting cushions made from the thade ka gaddewalla (the road-side stuffer and vendor of mattresses and quilts.)
I know that it wasn’t an easy decision for her. While Delhi‘s ladies are born with a discerning eye and an unparalleled passion to find the best deals on the pavements of the city, wifey is an import from the exotic south. So for her, haggling with the streetsiders was never an option – not until yesterday, when she finally caved in and realized that if she wanted those cushions to adorn the settee in our living area, she will have to go to the gaddewale bhayya (the mattress-filling brother.)
Perhaps you know that the urban india is fast getting into the plastic-money mode. Everyone, except wifey and a handful of others, have a credit- or a debit-card. Wifey doesn’t have one, because she uses mine. The unfortunate fallout of living with plastic money is that you don’t carry much cash with you. However, the gaddewale bhayya isn’t someone who’d accept anything other than cold, hard cash, and so I found myself queued up in front of an ATM Machine.
In front of me was a rather well-endowed young lady who reminded me of the Walmart people. By her side stood an emaciated man in his thirties who kept scratching his stubble, confirming my opinion that he was running close to the time of his fortnightly bathing ritual. You might be wondering whether this man was between me and the Walmart-lady; and if he were, then why was on the side and not behind her. And no they weren’t together. Well, that’s how queues are formed in India.
So we stood there and waited, and waited. But the ATM’s door didn’t open. After five minutes, we began to grow restless. The lady in front of me cracked the door open and said in her sweet, melodious voice, “Come out now. This is an ATM not your house!”
That was the first time I laid eyes on the monster. He was a roly-poly thirty-some man with a round bespectacled face and beady eyes. He slowly turned on his heel, and growled, “I need ten more minutes.”
“Ten minutes?” exclaimed the lady with spilling tires.
“Ten minnnnutes?” drawled the thin pin who stood at her left.
“Ten minutes?” yowled wifey who had accompanied me to the ATM.
“I’ve already been waiting for ten minutes, said the walmart lady who possibly wanted to withdraw the cash to buy new dresses that were at least two sizes larger. Everyone understood her emergency. Everyone except the ATM monster. He whipped out his cellphone and started talking while punching numbers in the machine.
The lady continued to complain. A few minutes later, he relented, but stayed inside. The lady who needed new bigger garments squeezed inside, finished her transaction in under a minute, and left the ATM after throwing the monster a dirty look. The monster smirked and hogged the machine once again.
During this time, another man, clearly of Punjabi descent joined the queue behind me. The ATM guard (yes, our ATMs have guards) too became interested in the going-ons. And I lost patience. Mr. Reedy-Needy didn’t, even though he was technically ahead of me in the queue.
“Please come out so that others can use the machine,” I yelled. He ignored me.
“If you have to do ten transactions, you must queue up again,” I shouted. He turned, very slowly, and glared at me. Then he turned back and began punching numbers.
“People’ve been waiting here forever, you must leave the machine now,” I said, trying to sound stern without getting shrill. He turned again and said, “give me five more minutes.”
The slim-stick ahead of me was still the embodiment of patience. Wifey had begun to turn red – she usually turns red before she explodes, so I was getting really worried. But what actually made the ATM Monster take notice of us was the complaint from the Punjabi gentleman behind me.
“Oji,” he drawled, “I’ve been standing in this queue for half an hour, get out, ji get out.”
The monster turned his head and said, “I’ve been inside this ATM for 15 minutes and there was nobody when I came, how could you have been here for half-an-hour?”
That was a logical question. He came after me, and I had been standing there only for about 8 minutes. But then he was on my side – and teeny-tiny details didn’t matter.
So then we all did what we do when we see monsters. We used brute force. All of us, excluding Mr. Thin who wanted to withdraw money to buy a cake of soap, opened the ATM door, got inside and stared him down.
“Do you mean that if I have to do six transactions, I should queue-up six times?” The monster complained.
“Yes,” we replied in unison.
“That’s ridiculous, all I want is 5 minutes!”
“No,” we shook our heads.
“Okay, then, I’ll wait,” he said, slunk to the corner of the ATM and stood there. Wifey and I stayed in and I withdrew the cushion-money.
It was then that the monster farted – a long and uniform fart that couldn’t be mistaken for one that escaped his buttland in error; that fart had “deliberate” stamped on each of its smelly stinky molecules.
He smiled at us victoriously, and said, “Sorry!”
If you enjoyed this post, find more of my Quirky, Snarky, Malarkey in The QSM Magazine. |
—— §§§ ——
Indian bloggers who write comedy and humor | QSM Magazine – humour and parody from India | Full of comedy, jokes, funny stories – QSM Magazine | Blogs filled with Indian humour and jokes by Indians | Desi chutkule and Indian Comics with humour | Magazines with humour from India | Humourous and funny twist of Indian culture | Indian humour parody bloggers – laughter and fun | QSM -The Indian magazine full of comedy, funny jokes | Satire and comedy on Indian culture and society | Indian humor magazines with desi tadka | Humour from everyday life in India | Bloggers from India writing funny jokes and comedy |
What an eventful trip to the atm
LikeLike
eventful is the right word to describe it. After all, who expects anything to happen on a trip to ATM?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I know right😮
LikeLiked by 1 person
always
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh dear! What a nasty farty monster! Some people have no manners and can be downright rude. I have met an ATM monster before, was not a nice encounter
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your ATM monster too was a farting beauty?
LikeLiked by 1 person
He didn’t fart. He excavated his nose thoroughly and used the same finger to punch the numbers on the ATM. I lost my desire to get money from that machine.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Urgh! Wifey makes such terrible faces when she sees someone doing that – she begins to look like hulk. Were you carrying a disinfectant with you?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have a small one in my bag always. Just I simply didn’t use that ATM again! I was grossed out that he was digging, no excavating his nose so publicly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have a feeling that the nose-excavator frequents the other ATMs too, leaving his bacterial trail behind. Good that you carry that disinfectant with you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yep 🙂
LikeLike
The ATM monster is funny but somehow I got stuck on the unfinished story of the gaddewala… I am sure bargaining with him was eventful 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
There was no bargaining at all. He told her the price and before I could intervene, wifey nodded and said, “theek hai bhayya!” I am glad that Mom wasn’t with us, or she’d have bitten wifey’s head off for this shopping misdemeanor!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha ha! Yes, I am on your mom’s side for this one 🙂
LikeLike
She has this coin with two heads..
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh wonderful! 😀 a must have!
LikeLiked by 1 person
What could possibly take so much time on an ATM? Thank goodness the fart happened at the end of this escapade!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh! You have no idea ! Over here people go to the ATM with a stack of envelopes to pay their rent, phone, electricity, gas, water , insurance , traffic fines, taxes, credit card down payments , tolls , college tuition , monthly bus/train passes , concert tickets ,anything you can think of , we can pay through the ATM – we were the inventors of the system apparently – I’m sorry Anand 😦 and they will do it all in one go , but it takes a separate operation for each payment so you can imagine . Sometimes it’s maddening when you just need to withdraw 50 bucks quickly .
Turtle Hugs 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wow, that’s got to be so frustrating! Sorry to hear that!
LikeLiked by 2 people
The wait was frustrating, the fart was incredible.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hahahahaha! I’m dying!!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
All that pent up gas….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Agreed. It must be crazy waiting for people to open their own personal office at the ATM.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad you invented it…once in ten trips you end up meeting an ATM Monster – India too is beginning to use ATMs a lot of non-cash activities…I think I must keep up – and the first step is to get some cash in my account 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes your wife may need it again 😉
But you know our street vendors here have portable ATM machines 😉
Turtle Hugs 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Portable ATMs? I’d like to have one too. So who puts the money in?
LikeLiked by 1 person
No , no, no, not like that Anand !
They’re only good for making payments , you can’t retrieve money from them.
LikeLike
Multiple transactions. Who knows he might have a stolen cache of credit cards that he was trying to cash.
LikeLiked by 1 person
ha ha 😀 the only words that I have for this one ….It Happens Only In India 😉 😛
LikeLiked by 1 person
And ATMs that are in a glass-enclosure, duly guarded by a gunman who usually doesn’t know how to shoot, too happen only in India 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
😀 the guards with no physique to even protect themselves 😉 are allocated the work of securing lives of others 😛 (in ATM and society’s) ..this too happen only in India 😉
LikeLike
I am not sure if they are even a deterrent.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I bet that they are not 😛
LikeLiked by 1 person
No…or why would so many ATM robberies happens.
LikeLiked by 1 person
harsh but true 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
Too funny! I enjoyed this 🙂 At least the revenge came as you two were ready to leave …
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mr. Reed was the next one in. I hope he didn’t faint.
LikeLiked by 1 person
after reading that post, and all the comments i would be visiting the ATM equipped with a face mask disinfectant or sanitizer, air freshner spray and gloves to put on before I use that number pad. oh, and did i mention gas mask 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
If I see a masked lady toting a sanitizer, I’ll know that it’s my newfound friend 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person