What a truly great idea: a shirt with magnets for buttons. Easy to get in and out of, with no zips, poppers or buttons to fiddle with in emergency robing or disrobing situations. This is what I thought when I got my first shirt with magnetic buttons. My belly played peekaboo with the world, as I ripped open my shirt, only to allow gravity to swing the dangling magnets to their mates in a matter of moments.
Now, ten pin bowling is nonsense. The harder you try, the worse you get, and the more likely you are to dislocate your shoulder while projecting the bowling ball into a neighbouring lane in sheer frustration. Every few years, I forget how annoying the ‘sport’ is, and agree to go again, which happened last week.
Without any cash, I headed to the Tube. I tried to purchase a two pound ticket using my debit card, thinking I could pick up cash from a cash machine later. It wasn’t recognised. I tried my credit card, as the queue of ticketless people mounted behind me. This was rejected too. Seven times. I was frustrated before I’d even got my bowling shoes on. I looked around at the huffing queue over my shoulder, smiling weakly as I tried my debit card again. No joy.
I resolved to find an ATM, reasoning that the ticket machine must be out of sorts. I was getting later and more frustrated by the second as I found the first ATM. Small queue, only a few minutes waiting. In with the debit card. “Bitte ihre PIN angechrieben”. OK, in with the pin number – a promising sign I figured. The ATM spewed out a page in German, which my schoolboy Deutsche led me to believe was an invitation to choose a language to proceed in. “Darf ich die Jacke apflegen, Herr Professor?” etc.
The language choice didn’t include English, which was puzzling. I figured my French was better than my German, and pressed the appropriate button. The ATM looked at me. I looked at the ATM. Nothing happened. I pressed the button again. Anything refused to happen. I tried the ‘German’ language button. The ATM failed to leap into action. I pressed the other indeterminate language, again nichts. Appealing to the ‘cancel’ button yielded sweet f.a, although I swear that the ATM was smirking at me by this point. Another queue building up behind this tardy bowler. Arse.
I waited until the machine grew bored of silently taunting me. It beeped a little and then spat out my card. For some reason, I decided to repeat this painful procedure. In my frustration, my powers of deduction had failed me. It seems obvious now that the magnetic strip on the card that had been sitting in my wallet in my shirt pocket next to the magnetic buttons of my stupid bowling shirt for the last half hour was corrupted in some way. It took me a while and several more ATMs to figure that out. I didn’t make it to the bowling meet in the end. Maybe I don’t have to go for another few years now.