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2006-03-17 @ 10:35 p.m.
banks, boys and bush


Sheesh, today when I went into the bank, it looked like a giant Liberace shamrock had just exploded. Every teller was not only was wearing green, but they looked like a bunch of radioactive leprechauns.

Being proactive, I choose the one and only male teller since there was no line. And right when I had to decide between the horsey-faced woman and the cute young guy, the horsey faced woman sadly said, �Its okay if you go to him. I realize he�s cute and all.�

Man, what lousy self esteem. There, there....Mrs. Ed. Chin up. Someone will go to your window....eventually. Like when there's a long line of single women all the way out the door and they have to get their banking done before their pilate class and they can no longer wait for Jim -- the Impossibly Cute Bank Teller. Then you'll get your quota, Ms. Teller. Then.

Afterwards I headed over to the customer service rep, or as I like to refer to her, the woman dumber than a sack of hamsters. I know she means well, but ever since she screwed up my bank account when I moved, changing my mother�s address instead of mine and sending all my banking stuff to my mother�s and my mother�s banking stuff to my house, I have never trusted her again. So naturally I was excited to bring her this latest problem.

This last week I had gotten a letter from a collection agency. Now this is strange because I have no outstanding bills....for once. I�ve been the very model of a model major clean record bill payer. The name on the envelope had the wrong first name but the correct last name. It also had the wrong apartment number and the wrong bank account. So, being a nice person, I thought if I took it to the bank, they would be able to look up the bank account number listed on the letter and send it to the correct person. I would have tried to find the person myself, but our mailboxes don�t have people�s names, and we have 4 buildings with four apartment #3�s and who wants to knock on someone�s door and ask them if they�re being chased down by a collection agency?

But for a bank...piece of cake, right? Not for Sack of Hamster brains evidently. She looked at the collection agency letter like it was the chemistry formula for nuclear fusion, slightly befuddled and then called someone. While she was on hold, I was telling her she should just look up the account, see who it is and then just send it to them. But...oh no. She couldn�t do that. Privacy issues, ya know. I kept telling her I had absolutely no interest in knowing who it was. And I didn�t. Truly.

Here! I�ll even shut my eyes!

But her fingers were clattering away on the computer as she whispered into the phone like she was passing State secrets. Finally she hung up and said, �one moment, please.� So I sat and waited. When she came back, she had an envelope. I asked her what she was going to do. �Oh, we�re going to resend it to the customer.� I told her that the very same thing was going happen AGAIN. The postman would see my last name...the apartment number would get scribbled out and it would be put in my mailbox. But she just shook her head and said, �That is what we�re supposed to do in this case. Resend it.�

Oy! Who knows, maybe if the bank job doesn't work out, she can get a job at FEMA.

I did have a brief work stint today with �Younger J� and it too, was far more complicated than it actually had to be, because of an elaborate game of phone tag. I had to go somewhere with him this afternoon in his car and rather then just telling me to get my ass down to the office by noon, I kept getting all these vague �I�ll call you� messages. He did give me his home phone but he said it so fast, that after listening to it 4 times on my voice mail I finally gave up trying to decipher it. I mean, he�s a nice kid and all, he just doesn�t communicate very well.

He�s also been trying to ask me out to lunch for the last couple of weeks. He won�t say, �Will you go to lunch with me?� Its more like �Are you going to lunch?� which of course leaves the door wide open for me to say, �Yes I am� and then walk off down the hall purposely. I don�t want to go out with him. He's way too young (early 30's) and his idea of humor, for instance, is to walk up to me and say �fuhgedabboutit�.

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And.......... Yeah, that�s about it. And unfortunately, he tried the lunch thing once again today. And I was like "Yes". And I could tell he was frustrated that he didn't close the deal. He really needs to find a girl his own age. And his own humor level. And he definitely deserves much better than some cranky old artsy chick.

So after our brief work stint, I was off to the B. Pickle for lunch...by myself. I was just in the mood to have something a little more than Subway and they do have great tapioca pudding with whipped cream and cinnamon. See how exciting my culinary tastes are? I had an hour and a half to waste, so after lunch I headed to a nearby library to check my e-mails. I settled in and there were two women talking at the nearby computers and I kept hearing, �mumblemumblemumble PETALUMA mumblemumblemumble PETALUMA.�

Of course, Petaluma is where I lived out in California for most of my adult life before I moved East. And its not like its a huge city or anything, so hearing it being talked about in some tiny East Coast library really piqued my interest. It was so interesting, in fact, that I eventually got up the courage to butt into somebody's private conversation, which is something I never do. The Petaluma woman was about 45 and the other woman was in her 70�s but they were chatting up a storm about a subject that is near and dear to my heart...how stupid President Bush is. And they were totally hilarious, especially the older lady. I joined in a little, but the stuff they were saying was so highly inflammatory that I thought that the other people using the computers (3 men) might jump up and try to invoke the Patriot Act or something. Pretty soon though, we were all laughing especially when the old lady expressed her fond wish to send Dick Cheney a keg of beer just before he went quail hunting with George W. Bush and then she did a spot-on impression of Barbara Bush sitting on the toilet adjusting her pearls. What a riot! Now see, that�s my idea of funny.


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