Dodging bullets
It is 12:37 p.m. I am second in line at the pickup window behind a low-end white Toyota Tercel with dirty windows. The driver is smallish. I can only see the top half of her head over the headrest. I take her to be a woman, by the length of her hair, which is being blown by a strong current. The Tercel's windows are down, but the afternoon is relatively calm. She must have the fan blowers turned up to high. Her head is in constant movement, swiveling. I see no evidence of anyone else in the car. Somehow all this bodes ill for the speed with which I will be getting home with my Jumbo Jack.
She extends her arm out the window. In her hand is a card. Maybe a coupon. Damn. Coupons mean trouble. Now she reaches the card toward a device mounted on the lip of the pickup window. She turns the card sideways and vertical. I see a magnetic strip. Oh, my God. It's a credit card!
I am screwed. A smallish, nervous woman in a dirty low-end Toyota with the fans turned up high is trying to use a credit card at a fast-food pickup window. I didn't even know they took plastic! I have never before seen a card reader at the window!
Into my mind flashes recent television commercials for Visa cards. One is at a nursery, one is at – yes – a fast-food place! As long as everyone is using a Visa card, business flows smoothly, like clockwork, and everyone is happy. Then some Luddite cretin pays with cash. The clockwork slows and stops. Plants wither in the delay. Lettuce rots in the fast-food tacos. In the line, happiness turns to dismay. The offender notices and appears to feel small. At last he is gone and the happy Visa choreography returns.
Ahead of me, the woman, leaning halfway out the Tercel window, slides the card. She waits, turns the card over so the name side is toward me, slides it again. I wince, and look away. Look down. In my left hand are three dollar bills, exactly what my order will cost, unless inflation kicks in before this woman can get her food paid for. Into my mind flashes the small world wars I routinely witness between credit card users and card readers at the supermarket checkout.
Now the woman has handed the card to a hand appearing in the pickup window. I sigh and wonder if I should just cut off the engine. Then, just as quickly, the card is handed back. Out the window is handed what appears to be a cup of coffee and a small sack. I feel I have dodged a bullet. After the usual moments of receiving, positioning, and preparation to drive, the Tercel pulls forward, and I am grateful.
Of course the bullet I have dodged comes in many calibers. Sometimes, and you don't see this much anymore, it is a woman watching her groceries go through, purse slung over her shoulder, and not until the total is rung does she take the purse off her shoulder, look in it for her checkbook, and start to write the check. Sometimes it is a wad of coupons, being scanned one at a time, and every third one needing some kind of extra attention. Sometimes it is someone's diabolical need to pay in cash, down to the penny, counting out thirty-eight cents one coin at a time.
I am always glad when it is over, and I am smiling at the clerk's apologetic shrug. And behind the Toyota, seeing the difference between real life and the Visa commercial, was really funny. And therein, of course, is the truth, or the fib, about the commercial. It isn't a Visa card that creates a clockwork life. It would have to be clockwork people. I really don't think I would want to live that way. I wouldn't want to be a bullet to dodge, either. It's an interesting tension.
She extends her arm out the window. In her hand is a card. Maybe a coupon. Damn. Coupons mean trouble. Now she reaches the card toward a device mounted on the lip of the pickup window. She turns the card sideways and vertical. I see a magnetic strip. Oh, my God. It's a credit card!
I am screwed. A smallish, nervous woman in a dirty low-end Toyota with the fans turned up high is trying to use a credit card at a fast-food pickup window. I didn't even know they took plastic! I have never before seen a card reader at the window!
Into my mind flashes recent television commercials for Visa cards. One is at a nursery, one is at – yes – a fast-food place! As long as everyone is using a Visa card, business flows smoothly, like clockwork, and everyone is happy. Then some Luddite cretin pays with cash. The clockwork slows and stops. Plants wither in the delay. Lettuce rots in the fast-food tacos. In the line, happiness turns to dismay. The offender notices and appears to feel small. At last he is gone and the happy Visa choreography returns.
Ahead of me, the woman, leaning halfway out the Tercel window, slides the card. She waits, turns the card over so the name side is toward me, slides it again. I wince, and look away. Look down. In my left hand are three dollar bills, exactly what my order will cost, unless inflation kicks in before this woman can get her food paid for. Into my mind flashes the small world wars I routinely witness between credit card users and card readers at the supermarket checkout.
Now the woman has handed the card to a hand appearing in the pickup window. I sigh and wonder if I should just cut off the engine. Then, just as quickly, the card is handed back. Out the window is handed what appears to be a cup of coffee and a small sack. I feel I have dodged a bullet. After the usual moments of receiving, positioning, and preparation to drive, the Tercel pulls forward, and I am grateful.
Of course the bullet I have dodged comes in many calibers. Sometimes, and you don't see this much anymore, it is a woman watching her groceries go through, purse slung over her shoulder, and not until the total is rung does she take the purse off her shoulder, look in it for her checkbook, and start to write the check. Sometimes it is a wad of coupons, being scanned one at a time, and every third one needing some kind of extra attention. Sometimes it is someone's diabolical need to pay in cash, down to the penny, counting out thirty-eight cents one coin at a time.
I am always glad when it is over, and I am smiling at the clerk's apologetic shrug. And behind the Toyota, seeing the difference between real life and the Visa commercial, was really funny. And therein, of course, is the truth, or the fib, about the commercial. It isn't a Visa card that creates a clockwork life. It would have to be clockwork people. I really don't think I would want to live that way. I wouldn't want to be a bullet to dodge, either. It's an interesting tension.
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