Davis Square has its charms, don't get me wrong.  And the students, despite grumblings from townies, are among them.  They're a mixed blessing, as anywhere.  They give the neighborhood a certain vitality that it would otherwise lack.  But there is a price. 

I'm not saying it's necessarily students who throw up on the ATMs with startling regularity, but I'm assuming it's not the bums that wander the square pestering passersby for an ice cream cone from Lick's and sometimes end up curled up on the floor of the ATM, which also doubles as a shelter for the Tufts bus in the winter. 

And it's not only that there's vomit encrusted on the ATM screen, the partially dismantled counter, and on the inside door handle, it's that it seems to have gummed up the works in the money machine itself.  See, this is one of the ATMs that sucks your card in and won't give it back until it's good and ready. 

And for some reason, while it will shoot out your cash without a hassle, it keeps telling you to take it when you've already done so.  It insists you haven't — "here, take it!  Come on, what are you waiting for?" — and won't give you your card back until you've begged and pleaded and missed your bus.

I'm not sure how you convince it that you've taken your cash and want your card back, actually, but I have tried slamming, kicking, shouting obscenities, pleading, weeping, and bargaining.  Maybe vomiting on the screen is the trick. 

At any rate, after about five minutes (a virtual lifetime to spend in a vomitorium) it decides it's had enough of you, and spits your card back out.  No apologies, no explanation.  No "thank you for not throwing up on me."  Nothing. Just that judgmental beeping that ATMs make that means: "don't forget your card, stupid human." 

This is why I don't carry cash.  Whenever I want cash, I have to ask myself, do I really want it?  And is there somewhere else I can get it?  There's another ATM about four blocks down Elm, and sometimes it's worth it to walk there and back.  It certainly doesn't take any more time than the one on the square, factoring in all the bargaining to get your card back.

I wonder if it's not time to just dump the cash economy altogether and go with the Mark of the Beast? Hell couldn't be any worse than these urban ATMs, could it?