IGA, Red Owl and Piggly Wiggly in Wisconsin pretty much all had this. Byerlys and Lunds in Minnesota had it, too. Probably still do, those are the “posh” grocery stores.
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Byerly’s and Lunds…thanks for the reminder! That was always the once-a-year, special treat store. Often, we just walked around, since they really were out of our price range.
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My mother has an oversized sense of entitlement, and shopped there whether she could really afford it or not. Fortunately, it wasn’t super frequent. Mostly we shopped at Rainbow or Cub. I greatly miss Cub because it was the same size as Holiday Plus, but was all groceries. You could get nearly anything there that you could get at Byerlys, but at a lower price.
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Mail delivery in NYC once traveled by pneumatic tubes (philly first, tho) and IIRC there were proposals to expand. In some parts of NYC, trash-sucking tubes still operate. Now there’s your Internet of Things.
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When I worked at Eatons Department store we did our nightly cash outs by pneumatic tube. Roll that money and cash report up tight, jam it in a tube and send it on its way! And when you needed change you did the same, send bills and note down then waited 10 minutes and tube full of rolls of coins would show up! Very neat “shmoockpt” noise it made too.
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In a few years, we will look back and wonder how calling things “a thing” became a thing.
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“This is what we used to call ‘a thing.’ Now we call it a shizzknuckle”
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My vote is for the perfect term created by @Missy_Pants, above: “shmoockpt”.
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I liked that one too! I laughed out loud and had to say it aloud a few times for added effect. The dog cocked her head at me, listening to my antics.
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Up until he stopped driving this year, my dad always eschewed ATMs, and would get cash by driving up to an actual drive-through bank teller console with the vacuum tube and the whole bit, just like when I was a kid in the 70s. Last time I accompanied him on such a trip it was the first time I’d seen it in action in decades; I really thought they didn’t exist anymore. I suppose it’s largely for old farts like my dad, who never cottoned to that newfangled cash machine everyone else eagerly adopted during the Reagan Administration.
“Shmoockpt” is the absolute perfect sound of those things, if you accompany it with a tinny “Have a nice day, Mister Petersen.”
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Back in 1989 I worked a summer in s&r for a Mervyn’s department store. I carried a lady’s bags to her car and she gave me a $20 tip. That was in Southern California. My first and only gratuity in my life.
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I withdraw cash at the ATM, but for deposits I use the human lanes at the bank. Most days, it’s the lane right next to the building, but there is one teller who I don’t like. When she’s on drive-thru, I take the outside lane with the pneumatic tube. I don’t think she likes me either, so we both win. Even though I spend my days making pixels turn colors on screens around the country, the pneumatic tube feels so futuristic, I love it. Plus, it makes a fun sound.
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If you don’t have cash to deposit, check this out. Bank of America’s phone app lets me take a picture of the front and back of a check I want to deposit. If I get a check in the mail, I can sign it and then deposit it while standing in my kitchen.
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Unfortunately, or maybe it’s fortunate, I am stuck with a small town bank that doesn’t do that sort of thing. So, I lose out on deposits by phone, but when everyone’s mortgages were being sold and repackaged, ours stayed with the Podunk Bank of Bumfuck Nowhere, so that worked out OK.
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Is wondering how calling things became a thing a thing?
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USAA lets me do this, but YMMV…they have rules that you or a close relative have to have served in the US armed forces to be a member.
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A sound like “Shmoockpt”???
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Yes it does!!
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Only 12? Amateurs!
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