Another clerk had worked his way out from the back of the store and was handling the register to help Cute Girl [1] with her sub purchases. She was still at the register when my sub was finished so I stood in line behind her. The clerk looked perplexed over what the register was telling him, then took Cute Girl's credit card to another machine. This one had multiple levers on it, apparently to set the price of the transaction, and he took out a carboned credit form. He puzzled over the intracate workings of a credit card machine from the 70s and after ten minutes decided that it too, must be down. He then turned towards Cute Girl. “The computers, they are down.”
“It didn't accept my card?” she asked.
“The machines, they are down.”
“You know,” she said, digging through her purse for money, ”I could have gone to the ATM and be back in the time that took.” He spent another five minutes writing her order down on the back of an envelope and ringing up the price on a calculator.