How many times does it happen to you? You head out of the house without any bitcoin only to realize, oh crap, you don’t have any bitcoin!! Well, fear not, the Westfield Palm Desert mall has a bitcoin machine so you can rest easy knowing that you can get your bitcoin before grabbing a Cinnabon – but not after a Cinnabon, because that would just be stupid.

Now, for all I know, this machine has been at the Palm Desert mall for years because, like many, I only go to the mall to go to the gym or for Happy Hour at Stuft Pizza – one of those I do more than the other (I will let you guess which one). I happened upon the Bitcoin machine this morning, which is on the lower level near Macy’s in the Palm Springs area’s biggest mall, and, wow, can you believe that there was no one even using it?

Sure, the mall used to have an ice skating rink and that hot dog place where you could pour your own beer, but now they have something even better: a machine you can insert thousands of dollars into and get, ummm, well I am not really sure what you get in return.

Oh -and it’s next to an also empty photo booth! So you can take a photo of how happy you are not that you have traded your money for a highly volatile cryptocurrency that you can’t use to buy anything almost anywhere. I mean, who doesn’t want to head to the mall and do that? You’re probably on your way from Palm Springs right now.

I am kind of disappointed that I am not able to report how the machine works as most of my investment portfolio is tied up in things like rent, the electricity bill, and did I mention how cheap the beers are at Stuft Pizza Happy Hour?

My hope is that this is, in fact, not an actual Bitcoin machine and just a prankster that has been sitting in an empty box for months now waiting to surprise someone who actually uses it or maybe John Quinones is hiding in the wings waiting to ask people, “What would you do if you saw someone exchanging actual cash for bitcoin at a freakin’ mall?”