I often need to go to the bank to transfer money from one account to another.

By which I mean: I take money out of the ATM (from account A), and I put it right back into the ATM (to account B).

Why in the hell should that be necessary?

I might not complain so much if it wasn’t for the fact that there is a branch of my bank (Chase Chase Chase Chase I hate you Chase) less than a block from my apartment.

But the ATM at that particular location is always giving me this bullshit:

In case that’s not legible, the marquee at the top reads “This Chase ATM is currently unable to accept cash deposits…”

That marquee mocks me about 50% of the time I visit that ATM, so I’m forced to go to the next branch. And I usually have to walk both ways because the CTA sucks. I believe I’ve complained about them many times previously, so I’ll spare you now.

All to take money out of the machine and put it right back freakin’ in.

Did you Americans know that in Canada you can just e-mail money to someone? And I ain’t talking about PayPal, neither. I’m talking about Interac, a mystical, magical future technology that I miss with ridiculous amounts of missitude, and am not going to bother explaining because, having tried before, it is clearly beyond the understanding of Americans. But with the Interac network I certainly wouldn’t need to walk to an ATM to transfer money to myself, and I wouldn’t have to move my ass from in front of my computer to send money to anyone in Canada with a bank account and an e-mail address. An. Y. One.

When I tell people in Canada about the American banking system, it’s like I’m describing something from the Stone Age. They are amazed by how bass ackwards it is and look at me with confuzzlement. America: please to fix before I curmudgeon myself to death.