The North Minneapolis ATM Story

So, if you hadn’t heard, ATMs in the inner-city are different than the ATMs in the suburbs. I could go into the reasons behind this, but I’ll save that for another time. Last night, I stumbled upon an awkward experience with an “inner-city” ATM in North Minneapolis. See, in Maple Grove, where I grew up, they had ATMs all the over the place - outside, in bank lobbies, even a drive-thru one… not the same in North Minneapolis, though! It’s another world.

I’ve been in the city now for over a year, but I’m obviously still learning the culture. I was on my way to a friend’s house in North and remembered I owed them money. “I’ll just stop at an ATM, get some cash, and all will be fine,” I thought. Or not.

I saw the bank and pulled through the drive-thru tellers, but they didn’t have an ATM. I drove past the lobby door, but still no ATM. It’s a bank, they’ve got to have an ATM, right? Finally, I saw a separate door with a separate room with an ATM sign emblazoned over the entry. Perfect. I parked my car and started walking toward the ATM room. Suddenly, another car quickly parked and a young lady on a cell phone came dashing out toward my destination. She got to the door first, put her little card into the slot next to the door [for some reason], and went in the little room. Someone must have been in a hurry, but did I need a security pass to get in? Weird.

The door was definitely locked and the girl inside wasn’t paying much attention. She was blabbering on her phone, not in a hurry at all. With this extra time, I decided to take in my surroundings. I noticed a sign next to the security card slot that said, “Insert ATM card to enter.” “One person at a time.” Sure enough, I tried sliding my debit card, but it still wouldn’t open… the girl was still in there. She finally made her way to the ATM itself, but started looking confused. She looked at me and gave some hand signals that I interpreted as the ATM being out of order… Great! No cash for me tonight, I guess.

I turned to walk back to my car, but when the lady tried to leave the ATM room, the door. wouldn’t. open.

Umm. What now? I couldn’t leave… she knew that I knew that she was apparently “stuck.” She started knocking on the door, motioning and mouthing to try to open the door with my card. That didn’t work. (A person was already in there, duh! Read the signs, people.) She tried putting her card in and out of the ATM again even though it wasn’t working, but that didn’t do anything either. We stared in awkward silence for at least a few minutes as she continued her phone conversation. It was very awkward.

We tried everything. We tried opening them at the same time, we tried waving our hands in front of the censors, we tried pressing the handicap-door-opener buttons, but nothing worked. If it had continued any longer, it was shaping up to be a pretty good premise for a B-list horror film.

And then she had an idea.

She backed up to the far end of the room, took a runner’s stance, and started reaching for something in her purse. Now - I’ve heard enough stories of crime in North Minneapolis that my mind started going all sorts of speculative places as to what could happen next. :) She pointed for me to back up as well…

Thankfully, though, after I took two steps back, the door unlocked itself, and the lady was able to leave. Supposedly, I was just standing too close to the door. Oops! If I would have left right away, the door would have opened just fine. She casually walked out like nothing extraordinary happened, still chatting on her phone, with no words of thanks for my harrowing efforts… Oh well.

Good practice for moving to another country, eh?