Person who used ballpoint ink pen instead of stylus on LCD touchpad: Why?

One of those little ATM thingies you see at a register in a grocery store, or (in this case) at a bank, you use a stylus to sign your name on the lcd. Because, you know, it is not paper, so you would not use an actual ink pen.

Or so you would think; yet everytime I see that little display, I see the remnants of a ballpoint pen with someone’s ugly signature preserved forever.

What WERE you thinking? Do you understand the difference between, say, an ATM and a girl behind the counter at the bank? Do you know the difference between a horse and a car? Why concept of technology is confusing to you? At what point during your ill-fated signature did you think, perhaps this wasn’t going according to plan? Did you wonder why the paper to sign wasn’t actually paper, and in fact was an electronic device-- and why there was a stylus tied to it? Would not that pen-looking device been more appropriate? Why would that stylus not have an ink point, and yet you think your ballpoint pen is suitable?

I know people make mistakes, but jeeze louise, there are mistakes, and then MISTAKES, you boy oh boy, you let your inner idiot out of its bottle.

Why concept of grammar is confusing to you?

IIRC (from an aseptic technique class), lobby pens are even dirtier than public toilet door handles.

Quite a few people grew up before ATM’s and electronic styluses existed. The similarity between the stylus leased to the ATM thingy and an actual pen may be confusing to them, particularly if their faculties are starting to diminish with advanced age.

Probably not the only explanation, but also probably a factor.

Most stores have both a stylus and a pen in the same area, attached by cords. The stylus rarely gets put back in the holder and distracted people make mistakes and grab the wrong pen. What’s hard to understand?

So the excuse is that they are old and senile? Why does not every old person do this then? It was only one person who did it. Seems to indicate not a generational thing but an individual idiot.

Because not every old person is senile.

It’s not a question of age, it’s a matter of attention span.

A number of times in Kroger someone has put a pen into that top hole that holds the stylus, and yeah, I’ve grabbed it before (I don’t think I’ve ever signed with it, but I wouldn’t be shocked if I’ve made a mark). Sue me.

Hmmm.

Y’know, they could probably rig something up so that a person would be shocked if they made a mark…

Not trying to be a (figurative) dick, but seriously who gives a fuck? Sign and move on.

They were too distracted thinking about their liability for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They probably went home right away and killed themselves to make up for damaging the pad that will now require more petroleum for plastic and then there’s the gold that was extracted with arsenic processing after being strip mined. Those poor workers in South America that got killed in the fighting at the copper mines was probably the thing to push the person over the edge, though it could have been all the coal miners that died in collapsed mines or the mountains that were destroyed in the Appalachians so that they could produce the steal used in the device and then power it.

If this bothers you enough to actually start a thread in the BBQ Oit and then defend it, then you need to take some action to expunge it from your memory.

The next time you are at the bank, take out a Wet One, (I presume you have a container in your car; if not buy the personal pack the next time you are at the drug store and bring it to the bank), and wipe the ink off the screen. The chemicals in Wet Ones are perfect for removing that sort of mark.

In a college class I took a few years back a professor did a little sharing for all eternity.

Written on the board was a previous professor’s name, some random words describing an assignment and a date. The writing was smudged as someone had evidently tried to wash it off later but you could clearly read what was there.

So evidently prof had used a permanent marker over a washable one.

And, oh yeah, had written the info on a Smart Board.

Reminds me of 1984; I was sitting in a darkened American History class watching a film on Native Americans. I had one of those twist-type ballpoint pens where turning the front half raises the ball point for writing.

There I am, sporting a pair of stylish corduroys and absentmindedly running my closed pen up and down the ridges of my thigh. It was a stimulating way to get through a 30 minute movie.

Unfortunately, the pen somehow opened during the ordeal, leaving both my thighs covered in ink. I was mortified, yet I don’t recall anyone noticing.

So maybe it happens something like that… you know, people are inconsiderate douches.

Dry erase takes permanent marker off of white boards.

Yep. So does dry marker, for that matter. Simply scribble dry marker over the stain from a permanent marker and then wipe it off with a normal eraser. (This is handy since a lot of dry boards do not have Dry Erase handy, but most of them have dry markers and erasers.)

Nah - all those people are taking twenty minutes to write a goddamned check.

I almost did this yesterday at Toys R’ Us. As stated by a previous poster, both the stylus and the pen were next to one another, black, and connected with black cords. Quite easy to confuse. I realized my error just before signing, and said to myself, “wow, I was almost ‘that guy’.”

This should be its own thread: “Are you too globally-aware and caring and liberal and eco-friendly to function in daily life?”

I tell ya, some days I’m teetering on the edge…