Seeing you reminisce about something that I see almost daily is a weird culture shock in that people in our same country experience life is somehow completely opposite ways.
It's like if someome told me there a secret Blockbuster still serving some quiet neighborhood in the country and for them its just... normal.
How about: i legitimately thought that the pneumatic tube system i saw in Futurama where Hermes saves the day was a made up thing (or otherwise not commercially used or deployed outside of some sort of lab setting) until i came across this submission?
I feel so silly right now.
Or you can get food!
We didn't have a pneumatic system but we did have internal mail delivered multiple times a day. There was even a trope back then of people starting their careers "in the mail room."
Conversely, if someone sent me physical mail at work today, I'd have to make special arrangements to even get it. If it were a package I assume/hope receiving would send me an email. Otherwise, I assume they just toss it given I haven't seen anything from them in years.
(Also if you want a videogame that plays with the trope, Grim Fandango has a fascinating pneumatic tube mail room and it factors into some of the puzzles. I believe it is also indirectly referencing the Empire State Building.)
Lol. Detroit doesnt get cold. My local bank closed its ATMs after hours due to homeless people sleeping in the vestibule. Strangely, with real winter comming soon they are going to re-open the vestibules to provide emergency shelter to all people maybe caught out in the cold. It hits -30 and -40 regularly around here. Drive thoughs are a norm because at those temps nobody wants to turn their car off. People regularly leave cars/trucks running while they shop in stores, if the parking lot doesnt have plugs for block heaters.
I think the only time I've gone in a bank/brokerage branch in years is when I've needed something notarized or I've had some non-standard brokerage transaction I've needed to handle in person.