If You Could Have an ATM for Anything, What Would It Be?

Yesterday CNN had a story on a new kind of ATM - a cupcake ATM! In her CNN article, "Cupcake ATM Vends Sweet Treats Around the Clock," Sonya Hamaski states the idea was inspired by the late night pregnancy craving of Sprinkles Cupcakes founder, Candace Nelson.

Now, 24-hours a day, seven days a week, you can satisfy your sweet tooth with a variety of yummy cupcake flavors. Though at a cost of $4.00 each, and currently only available in Beverly Hills, it does give us something to hope for.

Anyway, it got me thinking. If you could have a vending machine for anything, what would it be?

Here are some of the first things that came to my mind:

1) Fried rice
2) Ebooks - plug your Kindle, Nook or smartphone in.
3) Audiobooks - plug your iPhone, iPod or MP3 player in.
4) Makeup

And when I thought outside of the box, went wild, fantasized beyond reality, here are a couple of things I wanted vended:

1) Get your fortune told. Of course, you could have do-overs if you didn't like the first one.
2) Be granted three wishes. Caveat: As with all my thoughts on three wishes, the third wish would be for three more wishes.
3) Choose a date. (No, I don't need a date now that I'm married, but it seemed the natural course online dating might take in the future. Why not move on to selecting your date from a vending machine?)
4) Choose a job. That'd be great for the millions still unemployed. And just think, we wouldn't have to listen to all the political rhetoric about creating jobs.

Hey, come to think of it, maybe we should have an ATM for choosing government officials! But then, even in our wildest fantasies, we probably couldn't afford them.

What would YOU like to see dispensed in a vending machine?

Automatic Time Machine

If you could have an ATM spit out something other than money, what would it be?

The first thing I thought of when I considered this writing prompt was the conversations I used to have with my children. Though they took place two decades ago, I still remember them well.

“Sorry, we can’t afford it,” I said, when one of my kids asked for something—maybe new jeans, new shoes. Or, maybe they’d asked to go out to dinner instead of staying home to eat tuna casserole again.


Sorrowful whines followed in reply. “Mom, can’t you just write a check?”


“It doesn’t do any good to write a check if there’s no money in the account to cover it,” I replied, umpteen times.


But, my little darlings would not be stifled. “Then how about getting more money out of the ATM?”


I’m not sure exactly when my daughter and son learned that money didn’t grow on trees—that it certainly didn’t magically appear from ATM’s—but eventually they quit asking that question. But until that point, the only thing that powered my patience in repeatedly replying with the same answer was the sheer humor in their innocence.


So, I started daydreaming about this prompt, and it allowed me a bit of that innocence.

What if I could have an ATM spit out anything I want?

I thought long and hard about it, and here is my answer.

Time. But just as an ATM doesn’t spit out single dollar bills, I wouldn’t want it to spit out just any old time. No, I want the “twenty-dollar bill” of time – quality time. The time that comes AFTER the time I waste on the internet, talking on the phone, etc. Unfortunately, like money that is eaten away by expenses that must be paid between paychecks, productive, quality time dribbles away between wasted time.


So why not go to the ATM to get some more? Then, maybe I’d get my book finished. Only problem is, time – especially quality time – like money, is limited and can be easily wasted. Unfortunately, it’s no more possible to “just go to the ATM” for more time than it is for more money.


The innocence was fun while it lasted.

What would YOU like to have from an ATM?