Interest-Free Checking

    So that's how it works.  I knew there was a catch. 

I am he; he is me

    This happened to me once, albeit a long time ago.  I went up to the local Valley National Bank (that's what they were called in those days), at lunch to cash/deposit my paycheck.  I signed the back, and waited for my money.  The teller looked at me, looked at my signature, compared it to the one on my bank card (note : this was before your bank card had your pic on it), and declared that they didn't match, and that I wasn't me.

    Which raised the interesting question - how do you prove you are you?  For whatever reason, my Drivers License (which must've had my photo on it) didn't work.  She was convinced I had stolen poor Terry's paycheck and was now trying to purloin his hard-earned money.

    In fairness to her, my signature - even nowadays - tends to be a jumble of random scrawls, with each one being vastly different from the previous effort.  Which makes Travelers Checks a major challenge for me.  But hey, I really needed that money.

    I kept getting madder and madder; she kept getting stubborner and stubborner.  Finally, I demanded she call her superior over.  He looked at the signatures, looked at me, and told her to give me my money.  I don't think it was my handwriting that convinced him; I suspect he just fathomed that I was real ticked off, and that if I was a thief, that would not be my  posture.

Book Excerpt for the Day

my neighbor gives me the key to his house

when he goes on vacation.

.

I feed his cats

water his flowers and his

lawn.

.

I place his mail in a neat stack

on his dining room table.

.

am I the same man who planned to

blow up the city of Los Angeles

15 years ago?

.

(from Charles Bukowski's "The Old Anarchist")

.

I once vowed that I would blow up various Valley National Bank locations in and around Tempe. It had to do with them charging a $10 ISF fee when I was trying to close out my account at the end of a college year. I miscalculated (or they steered me wrong), and missed by 39 cents. For that I was penalized the ten dollars.

.

It felt good to vent to all my friends and acquaintances, and threaten VNB with explosive catastrophes. Later on however, it occurred to me that if anybody ever really did start vandalizing VNB banks, I would instantly become the prime suspect.