Definitely Do Not Click OK

On Saturday I was recruited to work bingo yet again to raise money for the sports teams to which my sisters belong. It’s hard to keep track, because there are so many, but I think we were working for softball money on Saturday, so Jamie, you need to thank me, like pronto.

Side note: I have noted lately with amusement that my parents sign up for their bingo weekend, and then when it comes along, my mother suddenly “has plans” and I get to help out instead. Very interesting, Mom.

I don’t really mind working at bingo once I get there, but I usually don’t want to go. It’s also really important that I be the paymaster, because I loathe floor sales. If I can be paymaster and Dad can be cashier and someone we like can be game night manager, then it’s all gravy as far as I’m concerned.

So we get there early so I can be paymaster, and once we get the bingo packages stocked and money in the cash drawers, we’re ready to start selling tickets. There are cashiers and pullers (people who pull out all the bingo sheets that people buy), and I’m usually a cashier. Normally, at this point we have tons of people waiting in line, and this past Saturday was no exception.

We get the go-ahead to begin selling, and as I turn to my computer I notice that there’s a keypad thing up on it with a line that says “reindex” and a blank space below it for a password. This was on all the screens, and we needed to get to a different screen to start ringing up bingo cards. I figured that I would just click on OK, because it would either take me out of that screen, or it would prompt me for a password and then I could just cancel and ask for help.

So I clicked on OK.

It was very much not OK.

Because, see, when I clicked on OK, it caused all three computers to hang while my computer ran the reindex program. Which takes a really, really long time – like twenty minutes. And these people have been lined up for at least twenty minutes already. So they were starting to get pretty angry.

You definitely need to not fuck with the unwashed masses when they’ve been waiting in line for twenty minutes to drop $80 on bingo cards.

Unfortunately, I fucked with the unwashed masses. And there was no way to interrupt the program or speed it up, so I did the most mature and helpful thing I can think of, which was to go and hide for a while in the manager’s room so the scary people couldn’t yell at me.

By the time the reindex finished, I was so rattled and embarrassed by my mistake that I kept screwing up people’s purchases, and the only good thing that came out of that was that everyone thought I was a complete tool and so I had the shortest line and was finished first. HA.

But then I went over to the ATM and promptly broke that too.

Seriously – I borrowed Dad’s ATM card to get some money for us to get food later, and the first time I put in the wrong PIN and after waiting for like five minutes, the machine spat the card back out to me. The second time I got the PIN right, but managed to crash the computer inside the ATM so that the guy who owns the place had to come over and unlock the whole thing and open it up and reset it.

Everything else seemed to go pretty smoothly, though. Except that everyone kept asking us why we weren’t giving out turkeys because apparently, sometimes at bingo you win turkeys. Who knew?

8 Replies to “Definitely Do Not Click OK”

  1. All this misery over a form of gambling that people pretend is not gambling. Anything cultural going on at the school, even if it is only a recital or the such?

  2. I.E., IMHO you need to find your own space and 'have plans', even if it means latching up with a girlfriend to go chat over a cup of decaf tea.

  3. I don't have issues with gambling in general, although I do have issues with doing anything to obsessive excess. This particular form of gambling, though, raises literally thousands of dollars for school extracurricular programs – money that was nowhere to be found when I was a student at this school. And so I'm quite fine with it.

  4. I propose a go-go-girl nude! nude! nude social to raise much-needed fun for the squash team.

    or not. whatever the reason is fine by me.
    :)

  5. I'm gonna have to disagree with mike on this one, and say that the order should go (starting with the worst): voting Bush, murder, THEN gambling.

    :)

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