I’ve misplaced a brain cell. Not just any brain cell; the one containing
the pin number to my checking account.
To be fair, it wasn’t a pin of my choice, but when first given to me two
years ago after a large bank gobbled up my small bank, it seemed easy enough to
remember and so I kept it.
I love ATMs.
Just the idea that you can put in a plastic card and it gives you money
never fails to thrill me. I usually take
out $20 at a time. Sure I could take out
$100, but then I wouldn’t get to play the game as often. With most of my thrills behind me, I cling to
little shit like this.
It’s just a tad pathetic. I know.
Where was I?
Oh, yes:
The missing brain cell. Because I
rarely carry a lot of cash, I use my debit card like a slot machine junkie at a
casino and I’ve probably punched in that same pin number hundreds of times always confident that it was lodged securely in my brain and
it was – until this past week.
Trader Joe’s on a Saturday afternoon is not the time
or place you want to have a brain fart.
With a month’s worth of cheap wine and pumpkin ice
cream already packaged up I slid my debit card through the slot like a pro and
that’s when it happened: “Enter Pin
Number.” As surely as if someone had
robbed me at gunpoint, the goddamn brain cell charged with the retaining of
that information was nowhere to be found.
I knew it started with a two and ended with a zero. You’d think with enough combinations I could
have hit on it, “enough” being the key word here. But you don’t get enough. You only get three tries and then you’re
locked out. Fuck.
The line of people behind me was not amused when I
had to pull out my checkbook – yes, a checkbook – and write out the payment in
longhand on paper like some relic from an era now studied in high school
history classes. As I pushed my cart
from the store I’m pretty sure I heard one of them mutter “poor thing.”
I know our body sheds and replaces cells all the
time, but lately I feel like I’m getting short-shifted on the replacement
part. I suspect the brain cell containing
the pin number ran off with the brain cell containing my Facebook password,
which I also had to replace recently.
Why the hell can’t I lose fat cells this easily?
