|
We all go to the bank and we all watch TV. Well I believe that 99% of us watch TV. There is that lunatic fringe that feels by not watching TV, or forbidding their kids to watch TV, that they are somehow enhancing their lives. From what I have seen, the people who don’t are some of the most uninformed people I have ever met. Not just uninformed about TV and entertainment but about life in general.
While I could probably write an entire column on that thought alone, the ones who don’t expose themselves to the cathode ray tube won’t understand the first part of this rant. So you folks can just skip down to the second half of this article, because I don’t want to waste your time. When you see the word “BANK” start reading there.
For the rest of my TV viewing friends, how many of you enjoy watching car pursuits on the news? Well if you do, you too can skip to the second half of this article as well, because I can’t stand them. When I turn on the news the last thing I want to see is some drunken monkey driving 5 miles an hour on his rims. Last Tuesday night, that is exactly what was on my TV in place of the eleven o’clock news. This wasn’t even a car chase; it was more like a car crawl.
Nope. No local news, no sports, and no weather. Nothing that I was looking for and everything I wasn’t. So off I went to find another local news channel but my search was futile. Every news channel was fixated on the same moron driving around Long Beach at a snail’s pace.
I don’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg. In this case it would be, was it the car chase or reality TV? Well, who knows, but the two are now melded together. Every time one of these doped up geeks gets behind the wheel and starts leading Johnny Law on a chase, it becomes the reality TV of the moment. An unwanted show that instead of being relegated to just one channel, like a disease, it spreads to all local broadcast channels.
I don’t know how many years it’s going to take before the news agencies realize that their coverage is a big part of the reason that we have so many of these chases. These twisted driving goons, in addition to whatever mental problems they have, are all looking for attention and they know they are going to get it once those news choppers show up. I, for one, don’t want to feed into it and I wish the local news stations would follow suit. Except for the end, a car chase or crawl is not news. Give us the news and if something dramatic happens give it a minute during the newscast at the end, say after the latest pit bull attack. As Forrest Gump once said, “That’s all I have to say about that”.
Now on to part two of my little frustration fest this week - BANKING. Generally when I go to the bank it is straight to the ATM. I’m in and out in a flash, even when there is a line. Sure, every once in a while you get that person in front of you who is there for their first time and is ATM illiterate, but usually it is fast. As I have been reminded lately, it is definitely faster than going inside of the bank.
With the exception of making a deposit for my parents when they are out of town, I never see the inside of the bank. Unfortunately, lately I have been forced into having to go in and deal with the inner sanctum. It seems like every time I have to, there is a problem. It is as though different people have trained all the tellers. They all seem to have different rules about how things are to be done. Sometime the rules even change when you go to the same person on different days.
I bank with Washington Mutual. Maybe that’s part of the problem, because they are so big. If I was to go with a smaller bank I might be limited as to the amount of locations and having to pay for ATM transactions. So unless you never travel outside of your local area you are going to be stuck having to go with one of the big boys.
There are two branches near to me, one of which is considerately closer. In the last week I have had to go there and go inside twice. Both times, I have had the misfortune of getting the same teller, who, for lack of a better term, is an idiot. The next time I have a transaction to do I will be doing one of two things. I will either let the person behind me go ahead should I be faced with going to this teller or I will go to the other branch.
The first time I went in this week it was to make a straight deposit into my parent’s account from mine, something I have done for years. In that time, not once did they even come close to not accepting the deposit. I mean why should they? I bank at Washington Mutual and so do my parents. It is basically nothing more than an in-house transfer of funds. That was until I was served by Toni. According to her, I had to have my parents sign the check even though they were not in the country and I had made this type of deposit numerous times before.
I began to ask why, but I had already stood in line for what seemed to be an eternity and was I looking to get out of there before my kids graduated from college. So I let her do her thing and she tried to make me feel like she was doing me a major favor by accepting my deposit and went off to get a signature from the grand poobah who was on duty. I left shaking my head wondering if she was new or just not very bright.
A few days later I got the answer to that question. We were having new carpeting put in and I was unaware that there is a limit as to how much you can put on your ATM card in one day. Of course that limit was $175.00 short of what I needed. After trying to plead my case with one of those extremely helpful (read: annoying) customer service representatives at Washington Mutual Central, who wouldn’t make an exception and extend the amount, I was forced to go back to my local branch to get a certified check.
It must have been the full moon or kismet, but after spending my customary eternity in the bank line, the teller I was dealt was, once again, Toni. But how could she screw this up? It was nothing more than me writing a check and her issuing a check back with the company’s name on it. I mean how hard could that be?
Well, when the person you are dealing with doesn’t know how to spell or listen that can be a problem. Especially when you are trying to get in and out as fast as you can since you have a carpet crew waiting for you to get back with the funds so they can begin work.
When she asked what the name on the check was I told her “Empire Carpets”. She stared at me blankly and said, “How do you spell that?” I was a bit taken aback. Did she not know how to spell Empire or Carpets? Empire was the one that was throwing her for a loop so I spelled it for her E-M-P-I-R-E. You know like the Roman Empire? She spelt it back to me not once, not twice, but three times. Then she printed out the check and spelled it back to me once again.
I took the check and bolted for my car. I don’t know why, maybe based on our last meeting, but before I started my car, I took out my glasses to look at the check. There on the check, big as life, was the name of the recipient, Impire Carpets. I took the check back in and of course it wasn’t Toni’s fault because she said she read it back to me. In my mind I was thinking, I don’t care just give me the right check and let me get out of here. She obviously wasn’t an alumnus of Temple City Schools.
Well that’s it for this week. I hope that your news is news and your banking is Toni free.
The Shrub Speaks: I think that steroids ought to be banned from baseball. The White House, Oct. 4, 2005
B.D.’s Response: Hum, Prez, I know you are busy, but steroids have been banned since 2002!
|
