Who moved my bank?

September 23rd, 2009

My love/hate affair with my bank goes on

I went across the street to the mall last night to deposit a check that had arrived in the mail. The miserable check was payment for an article that was submitted about 8 months ago and was finally published in June. The mall was closing up when I walked in and the bank was gone. The windows were plastered over with sheets of white paper. “Where’s the bank?” I asked a cleaner. She shrugged meaning:

• I don’t know.
• I don’t care.
• I don’t understand English. I only arrived in this country from (Insert name of any third-world country) 2 days ago.

I eventually found someone who pointed across the street to a new building. I dropped the check in the deposit box.

The bank likes me

I used to have a bank account with money in it. In these recessionary days I maintain an overdraft at the bank. It is not huge, but it seems to glow in a psychedelic red that draws every bank official’s attention to it whenever they walk anywhere near. So I get lots of mail and e-mails from the bank. Some offer me loans – they want me to build on my overdraft, some say nice things like “Please attends to your overdraft” and others threaten, “Attend to the matter of your overdraft immediately. If you have already done so please ignore this letter.” No matter how angry they get, they never slam the door!

I don’t like the bank

The bank is not my friend. There was time, a few years ago, when I would bump into the manager at the fast food court in the mall and we sometimes ate together, discussing important stuff like the weather. I was convinced the guy was human. Before I could build on our friendship, they moved him and we got a dragon in his place. She does not greet me and did not even give me a calendar in December, a sure sign that I am at the bottom of the list. But you can depend on the bank. At one second past midnight on the first of every month I hear a ‘ting’ on my computer and an email slides in from the bank, listing the bank charges for the past month. The bank charges me:

• For depositing a check into my account.
• For withdrawing money from my account.
• For making a payment to someone from my account.
• For breathing anywhere near my account.

This is despite the many letters I write to the bank reminding them that any money in my account is mine.

Grandpa’s bank philosophy

I once mentioned to my wise old grandfather that I needed to go to the bank for something or other and he said, “forget the bank, my boy. They will never help you. The bank only comes out to offer you an umbrella after the rain has stopped.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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