ATM Meltdown ATM's are your bread and butter

    Money might not make the world go round, but it provides lubrication . Looking for an ATM to get cash to pay for my rented vacation studio in Ciudad Vieja, I have apprehension. Banks and credit card companies have been told Scott will be out of the country. They have been given names of the countries I will be visiting and have authorized the cards to be used. ATM’s are blood transfusions to the withering traveler. If you don’t have money, you are going to the mat in a place where you have no friends, don’t speak the language, can’t read the street signs. This machine asks what language I prefer, asks whether I want dollars or Pesos, asks whether funds are coming from savings, checking, or credit card. I go through each step but the transaction is cancelled. People are in line behind me so I take my card and myself for a walk. Why is this not working? It hits me like a brick that I wasn’t prompted to enter my card’s password. This next try I punch in my password before I hit ” continuar ” and follow  instructions, to the end.  It is the right solution because the machine spits out hundred dollar bills that are so crisp that Ben Franklin must be printing inside the ATM,as I wait. ATM’s are a three letter word I like. It is amazing that a machine in a foreign country will give me money even though it doesn’t  know me from Adam.. ATM’s are as close to a money tree as us guys are likely to get.