This might be the real thing or a toy that teaches kids how to be greedy consumers.

I had a dream I was sitting outside in a park with several rich women. One of them reached into her Fendi bag and pulled out an “automatic personal ATM” about the size of a Notebook that flipped open and had a little screen and keyboard. She punched some data into the machine, and I watched as she checked her balance and then requested cash. The machine spit out the cash from a slot in the front.

I made a dumb comment about not being able to afford something like that because I’m poor. The women just looked at me blankly. Of course they did. What a stupid thing to say.

Then I woke up, and for a moment thought, “Wow! I don’t think anyone’s invented something like that. Maybe I could pitch that idea to someone, they could develop it, and I could get rich!” After all, lots of good ideas come from dreams, right?

But as the fog of dreamland cleared away, I realized there’d be a huge problem with that. If the cash was already in the personal ATM machine, why the hell would someone even need one? They could just keep their cash in their wallet, for God’s sake, instead of having to punch in a bunch of numbers to get it. It certainly wouldn’t be any more secure than a wallet, and such a tiny streamlined thing couldn’t hold more than a few bills at a time anyway.

Out of curiosity, I Googled “personal ATM machine” and it turns out they do actually exist, so obviously someone else thought of it first. The ones available are too big to be held in your hand like a cell phone, like that rich dream-woman’s was.

I laughed when I realized how dumb my dream idea was, but thought it was a good idea for a funny post about a stupid dream.