rewind

I wasn't originally going to tell ya'll about this because frankly it's not a story that puts me in a particularly good light. However it had a kind-of odd epilogue yesterday which has prompted me to reveal all, in spite of my shame.

So the other week Ade and my two wonderful flatmates all went to see The Pipettes (who were delightful, as always- if you haven't seen them, do check out their video). Aiden and I stopped off at an ATM in Golder's Green to get some casho. We both had vodka IRN-BRUs in our hands (this is my drink of choice for tube journeys- I don't know why), and each went to a different machine. So, I stick me old card in, punch in the old PIN number, £40 please.

While I'm waiting for my card to come back, some pimply motherfucker in head-to-toe white tracksuit with some insanely retarded bling steps right up to me, and says:

"Have you got a PIN for me?"

I say: "What?"

He repeats: "Have you got a PIN for me?"

I say: "No. Now step back from the machine."

He laughs and steps back, goes and stands with his mate next to the crossing. I was a bit distracted by all this so I took my card out of the machine and hurried along my merry way to the tube station. You may have figured out which highly important step in this process I missed out on by now, but I myself didn't twig to the error until it was my round at the bar, and was more than a little suprised to discover that my wallet had no money in it...because I'd never taken the money from the machine.

Now I'd love to say that this guy pulled somekind of Derren Brown inspired chicanery on me. I'd even feel less stupid if he was just distracting me while someone else took the money. But that's not the case. The guy was just being a jerk- I saw him walking across the street as I left the machine. He didn't take the money, I was just an idiot. It's not the first time. And it wasn't that I was down £40, I would have spent it anyway- it was that my own stupidity was the cause of it.

Anyway I chalked it up to dumbness, beat myself up a bit for few minutes, readjusted my budget, no harm no foul. And that would have been the end to a fairly uninteresting story, except that yesterday I got this letter from my bank:

Pretty cool, huh? Except here's the thing: I didn't dispute anything. I didn't even mention to my bank that I'd been an idiot and left £40 in the machine. They just figured it out for me. Isn't that neat? A friend of mine said she thinks that if the money sits in the machine for a few minutes, it retracts back inside, which does explain things, but who would have thought £40 could sit unmolested on Golder's Green High Street?

I'm struggling to find an aphorism that suits this situation. Fortune favours the indifferent? Good things come to those who don't really bother? It's just nice, is all.

d

ps- in related good luck news: price I paid for my Radiohead tickets? £32. Price they're currently going for on eBay? £215. Not that I will profit from this information, but it's nice to know.