The Magic Money Machine

Sarah knows it is called an automatic teller machine but she prefers to think of it as her magic money machine. All she has to do is insert her small plastic card, enter her Personal Identity Number, key in the amount she wants and the machine spits out the cash and returns her card. However, there is a limit to the magic. She must have a sufficient balance in her savings account to cover the cash she wants to withdraw.

Calling it a savings account is a misnomer, but she has to have it so the Government can credit to it her fortnightly old age pension payments. All she saves briefly are the odd dollars and cents which cannot be withdrawn using the machine. Without any other source of income she barely manages. She can afford the rent of her small flat, the basic food she needs and an occasional clothing purchase from St. Vincent de Paul or the Salvation Army. Before Winter, her most urgent need is a raincoat, which will really keep out the rain, and a better umbrella. But suddenly that changed.

When she saw the card lying on the footpath, she thought it was a voucher from the nearby car park because of its size and thick black stripe. Someone was going to need it to get their car out. She picked it up, thinking to hand it in at the little office near the exit. But it was a credit card - a Visa card. She could read Visa but all the other printing was foreign and the name looked like a company with "(3)" at the end of it. The signature was illegible but 8091 was written on the back in thick black ink. She wondered if this could be the PIN.

Not knowing what to do with it, she slipped it in her pocket. When she had a chance, she would hand it in at a bank or slip it into a machine which would, she had no doubt, gobble it up.

Sarah tried to hand it in at a large bank branch. "Not one of ours. Nothing to do with us," was the only response she could get. Frustrated, she inserted the card into the machine by the entrance, punched in the number written on it when the machine instructed 'Enter Your PIN' and requested $100 so that there would be something for the machine to reject. Instead of a rejection she was presented with two crisp $50 notes and the card was returned. Puzzled, she took herself off to the nearby French patisserie and ordered a nice pot of tea and a chocolate eclair while she considered the problem. Deciding there hadn't been enough time for the report of the loss of the card to work its way through the system, she resolved to try again in a few days.

Sarah waited until the end of the week and, this time, punched in $200 for good measure. The result - four crisp $50 notes, another pot of tea and another eclair. It became a regular routine. On Mondays and Fridays she visited one of the several machines she now patronised to withdraw her $200. This was followed, on Monday, by a visit to the patisserie and, on Friday, by lunch at a little Thai restaurant, a visit to the supermarket and a cab ride home.

Then the police came. Through the new lace curtains, she saw their car parked in front of the block of flats before she heard the knock. She shuffled to the door muttering to herself, "I should have known this would happen. I know it is really stealing. Will they arrest me? Can I pretend I'm not here? No. Better face the music." Slowly she opened the door to a very presentable looking young constable.

"Sorry to disturb you, Madam but we are making enquiries about the robbery at the service station..."

Relief rendered her deaf to the rest of the question.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear all that. Would you mind coming inside so I can sit down? I seem to be having one of my dizzy spells."

It finally dawned on her that the police enquiries were about a robbery at around midnight the previous night and had nothing to do with the Visa card. "No," she told the constable, "I was well and truly asleep at that time and without my hearing aid and with my good ear in the pillow, I wouldn't have heard a thing. Sorry I can't help." She ushered him out and shut the door quickly before he could ask her anything else.

Although she rarely drank, she felt she needed a small medicinal brandy to settle her nerves and help her work out why she told the constable she wore a hearing aid. Her hearing was one of the few things that still worked almost perfectly.

She continued to draw her $400 a week from the machine for over a year, without any further alarms, before the Visa card reached its expire date and the machine spat it back at her without delivering any cash. But not to worry. Her savings account had really been a savings account for the past year, and now, as well as a new raincoat and umbrella, she had quite a bit put by to cope with more than a few rainy days.