Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 7, 1993                   TAG: 9306070129
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AGHAST

So I was flabbergasted the other day when I stopped in a gas station in Roanoke and discovered that they've got pumps now that are set up in such a way that a person with a credit card can drive in, buy her gas, and drive out again without ever making human contact!

Will wonders never cease.

Put your credit card in, with the magnetic stripe facing the right way, punch a button or two, follow the directions that pop up on the screen, and you've got your gas, you've got your receipt. Easy as using one of the bank's ATMs.

Nevertheless, I stood there puzzling over the directions for a good little while before doing anything with my credit card's magnetic stripe. I once lost my entire month's paycheck in an ATM.

All the while I puzzled, a dapper man with Asian features was filling up his big sleek Chrysler at another pump. He never even batted an eye.

This had already struck me as somewhat ironic: me driving my little old Japanese import (with its 204,000 miles) and him driving his nice big American car.

(The most irrelevant thoughts will occur to me. Owing, no doubt to my simplicity, my naivety, my unparalleled fresh country beauty.)

And so there I stood, already in an ironic mood, faced with this gas pump that even gave me a choice of whether or not to take a receipt!

Well, I figured it out all right. I have my own personal copy of "DOS For Dummies." I also own "Windows For Dummies" (which, in my opinion, ought really to be "Windows For Total Idiots," since the dummie-level instructions aren't nearly simple enough). I'm nearly computer-literate. I can do ATMs. And now I can do gas pumps, too.

But I went into the station anyway and checked that I'd actually paid. You know: "Drive-Offs Will Be Prosecuted!"

"Oh, yes," the kind woman assured me. "You've paid."

"You mean I can buy my gas without ever coming into a filling station again?"

"That's right," she assured me. "You really don't have to come in any more. But wave, won't you, from time to time?"

I bought a car wash from her, too, just because she looked so wistful.

And here's another piece of irony, if you will: the automatic car wash - "Put your car in neutral and don't steer or touch the brake!" - zipped me right through a whirl of brushes and suds, to a couple of actual, living men who performed the towel-off by hand.

Doesn't this strike you as ironic? What requires the touch of human hands and what doesn't? I suppose the sci-fi-guys are right: there really could come a day when we'd never have to touch nasty ol' money again.

What in the world will I do with all my worn-out socks then, without pennies to stuff them with?

Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.