Aug 16, 2016 3 min read

I love the spirit of entrepreneurism that drives America. Especially when it comes from France.

Apparently seeking to capitalize on the growing reluctance of humans to interact face to face, the French company Paline introduced America’s first pizza ATM. The creatively named “Pizza ATM” – French marketing minds apparently have taken the summer off – is installed at Xavier University in Cincinnati.

The machine holds up to 70 12-inch pies that cost either $9 or $10, depending on toppings. Pies will be hand-prepped by Xavier U. food service staff and loaded into a refrigerated compartment in Pizza ATM. After being heated to 475 degrees in a convection oven, the selected pie will be placed in a box and dispensed through a slot. Xavier is the distributor for the machine, which could soon appear on campuses nationwide.

Pizza ATM is not yet in service for Xavier’s general student population. Xavier’s women’s soccer team received the first pie from the machine, but no word has come on whether they liked it. However, team members were seen kicking either a deflated red-and-white soccer ball or the pizza during the next day’s scrimmage.

I wonder: What other services might be offered via vending machine?

• Mouthpiece ATM: Placed outside any courthouse, magistrate’s office or police station, Mouthpiece ATM is loaded with six attorneys (three female, three male) of varying ethnicities. Cost is determined by your crime’s class – infraction, misdemeanor or felony. Insert your payment and appropriate counsel will slide through a trapdoor to your side. A corollary machine, Shyster ATM, could logically be placed on college campuses next to Pizza ATM, ready to dispense justice after a too-hot pizza burns a student’s tongue. Shyster ATM will accept payment only if Pizza ATM refunds money.

• Nominee ATM: Unhappy with the choices offered by the major American political parties? Nominee ATM is loaded with up to 20 male and female office seekers of varying ethnicities and religious backgrounds. A continuously variable potentiometer allows fine tuning of your political viewpoint, from “Bleeding Heart Liberal,” through “Centrist,” to “Right Wingnut.” A two-position lever lets your candidate flip-flop at a moment’s notice. Proprietary “Digital Demagogue” software allows users to record their views, and then have their candidate repeat them. Unsuccessful candidates can be recycled via the machine’s “Nixon” port.

• HealthNo ATM: A simple machine. No doctor’s appointment, no forms to fill out. Place your affected body part into the appropriate door, or cough into the microphone, and HealthNo diagnoses your illness. Slide your health insurance card into the receiver. Wait 10 minutes. After HealthNo denies your claim, proceed to the banking ATM across the street.

Like so many modern technological wonders – refrigerators that tell you when you’re low on milk, wrist-worn watches that tell you when your cellphone is ringing, forks that beep to tell you to slow down because you’re gulping your food – Pizza ATM has left me kicking myself because I didn’t think of it first. It’s tiring, to say nothing of awkward.

That’s why I’m working on BootUp! ATM, a machine that will kick me when I see an invention I should have thought of first.