The Banker Behind the Curtain

An unintended casualty of a failed bank, I opened an envelope from the national bank that had usurped the assets of the local financial institution where I opened a checking account upon moving to Chicago nearly seven years before. I had to read the letter within twice, because I simply couldn't believe what I was reading. It claimed that the deposit of cash and local checks I made on a Thursday still wasn't available for withdrawal the following Wednesday, which is when I had scheduled a number of payments to be made. And unlike my old bank, which never charged for withdrawals made from an account which had sufficient (but not yet available) funds, my new bank socked me with $35 per transaction, and charged interest for every day I didn't rectify the problem. They started charging interest on Thursday, the letter came Saturday afternoon. By the time I got to the bank Monday morning, I was on my fifth day of interest and fuming.

Deciding to give my new bank the benefit of the doubt, I sat down to speak with a banker, prepared to chalk the entire incident up to one big misunderstanding. I asked why my money wouldn't have been available an entire week after I made the deposit, explained that I would have taken care of the misunderstanding sooner had I known, and asked if there was anything that they could do. She tried to tell me it took local checks 2-3 days to clear, when the sign on her desk clearly read 1-2 business days. Then she told me she didn't know, then she told me that I had overdrawn my account. None of these things were true.

I argued that, if Takeover Bank was going to handle fees differently than Failed Bank, account holders should have been notified of these changes. Furthermore, if Takeover Bank was going to charge interest on overdrawn accounts, they should notify customers instantaneously by phone or email. Even the teller who made my deposit the day before I received the overdraft letter could have mentioned that my deposit was not enough to cover all the money that the bank had pulled out of my account.

The Deceptive Banker said she would talk to her boss for me. She disappeared, then came back a few minutes later, saying that they would reverse the charges for all but one NSF fee and one day of interest. I updated my check register, but still wasn't getting the same total that she was. I asked two or three times if I had forgotten to record a withdrawal or if there were other charges on my account that I didn't know about. She assured me there was nothing missing from my records and convinced me that I just needed a calculator. I would have preferred them to have reversed all the charges, but decided that was fair, thanked Deceptive Banker for her time, and left.

The next day, another envelope from Takeover Bank appeared in my mailbox. With a combined sense of foreboding and deja vu, I open the letter to discover that I had in fact been socked with twice as many fees as Deceptive Banker had claimed, fees which had been posted to my account days before my meeting with her. She was aware of the charges, even though I was not, and failed to disclose these charges to me even when I asked her directly.

I spent the next couple of weeks calling the bank, trying to speak with the branch manager, but to no avail. I kept getting transferred back to Deceptive Banker, who told me that she'd tell her boss that I "didn't understand" what she had told me, and if he "felt like" reversing more fees, he would. And if he didn't "feel like it", then I was out of luck.

After another week of calling and getting the run around from the branch manager-- the Banker Behind the Curtain-- who flat out refused to speak with me, an exasperated receptionist finally patched me through to the teller manager. She was very kind and took the time to look up my deposit and answer my questions, but when I asked her to honor the amount that Deceptive Banker told me I had been charged, she went right back to the root of my problems.

Not surprisingly, Deceptive Banker changed her story, and the kind teller manager relayed the Banker Behind the Curtain's decision to refund one more day of interest to placate me. I was not placated, and asked once more to speak to the Great Oz directly, because what they were doing was dishonest. She told me (albeit apologetically) that the Wizard's decision was final, and there was nothing more she could do.

At this point, I'm far more steamed about the way Takeover Bank has handled this entire debacle than I am about the charges themselves. And as for the Banker Behind the Curtain-- if he can't make the time to talk to little old me, maybe he'll be able to clear some time in his busy day of cheating, then hiding from, customers to talk to a representative from the OCC, which received my formal complaint against Takeover Bank this morning.

Uncle Al (Writing Prompt #13)

If you were to be the main character of a fairy tale, nursery rhyme, or a myth, who would you be? How would the story character be the same of different than what you know?

"Uncle Al, the kitties' pal," my dad used to say to the young, precocious child I used to be, who continually tried to rescue worms from a mud puddle, baby birds from the flower bed, not to mention -- of course -- the more domesticated menagerie of strays I longed to take under my little wing.

"What a great title for a nursery rhyme!" I used to think, imagining a tale of a benevolent, kindhearted soul -- not a prince, because they have princesses and not kitties -- but maybe a duke or an earl, who had a house and yard full of loving and grateful furry charges. Surely his good deeds were known throughout the land, and some clever use of anthropomorphism would bring his fuzzy and winged friends to life.

And his name was Al -- my name is Al!

I never knew the rest of the rhyme, but I longed to hear how Uncle Al and his kitties all lived happily ever after! As I outgrew the allure of fairy-tale references, though, my urge to find the rest of the story waned.

But it never disappeared entirely. I finally figured out who Uncle Al was, and as it turns out, his fairy-tale image was anything but. Uncle Al was not a duke, he was a clown, which frankly, is about the creepiest profession an uncle could have. And he wasn't the kitties' pal, he was the kiddies' pal (which is something else entirely) on some 70s T.V. show that I'm not quite old enough to remember.

Well, Mother Goose, you really dropped the ball on this one! So as not to let a title with such a nice cadence (and connotations) go to waste, allow me to offer up a verse or two on this magnanimous character about whom you neglected to write.

Uncle Al, the kitties' pal

Was known throughout the land.

While his felines purred,

to injured birds

He lent a helping hand.

Or how about...

Uncle Al, the kitties' pal

Was good and kind and nice.

The cats were content

but not the mice;

they paid a heavy price.

Or something like that. I'm a writer, but I never claimed to be a poet!

The Easter Egg Hunt (Writing Prompt #5)

Take a holiday and write about that gathering from the point of view of you as a small child.

I see a pink one! There, in the grass! And there's a yellow one in the wood pile! Ooh, the green one under the bush was hard to see, but I found it before the big kids did!

Easter is my favorite day to be at Grandma and Grandpa's house, because my cousins and I get to have an Easter egg hunt. I'm old enough to know that it's not the Easter Bunny who hides those eggs, it's my dad and my aunts and uncles, but they hide zillions of plastic eggs all over the yard; by the creek, in the barn, throughout the garden, and even in the trees. I don't like having to wait in the kitchen with my cousins, but Grandma says that it's cheating to look out the windows in the other rooms to try and see where the eggs are being hidden before the hunt begins.

We each get an egg carrier, a pink, yellow, or blue Styrofoam carton made especially to hold eggs, and when we fill it up we have to come back to the house to get a new one. The little eggs have candy in them, but there's a big blue egg out there for each of us cousins. The best thing about the big eggs is that they have our names on them. The worst thing is that they don't have candy in them, just money. Those big eggs could hold a lot of candy, but I guess money is okay, too.

Some of the eggs are easy to find. They're just lying on the ground in a tall bit of grass. Some are a little harder; we have to open the mailbox or look up high in the tree branches or kneel down to look under the cars. And some are so hard to find that even the grown ups don't remember where they hid them. Those eggs we usually find in the summer when we're out looking for snakes instead.

Once we find all but the very hardest eggs, we open all of our eggs and dump the candy into a big Ziploc bag that we get to take home. We can't keep the eggs, though, because then there would be none left for the next time. We eat some of our candy right away, and mom puts the money from the big blue egg in her purse. I wish we could have an Easter egg hunt every time we go out to Grandma and Grandpa's house, because it's my favorite thing to do.

I've Got a Crush...

... on Bobby! This handsome devil (who you may recognize as the gorgeous cover boy of Tree House's Fall/Winter newsletter) has been at the shelter for going on three years now, and I can't for the life of me figure out why no one has snatched him up yet. He's spunky, playful, and energetic. He's always the first in line for treats, and he delights staff and visitors alike with his clever playtime tricks. He loves attention, and-- for the most part-- gets along well with other cats. And have I mentioned that he's gorgeous? His sleek black coat complements his big green eyes, eyes that are round and inquisitive, and that give him a perpetual look of feigned innocence. That very look has gotten him out of trouble on countless occasions-- he just fixes that imploring gaze on anyone who is less than delighted by his antics, as if to say, "who, me?"-- and all is promptly forgiven.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that, when it comes to Bobby, I may be a wee bit biased-- I am one smitten kitten, after all-- and I've always had a thing for "bad boys". Not that Bobby is bad-- he's great! But his exuberant personality and rambunctious nature quickly earned him the reputation of being "overstimulated" (a term given to cats who don't always show their excitement in ways that we humans like or understand), and some went so far as to call him a "jerk". I couldn't disagree more! I suspect that the people who think he doesn't play nice are objecting to his claws, and not his personality. Those long, thin, carefully filed talons are his pride and joy, and he won't let just anyone trim his nails. He doesn't use them maliciously, but they sometimes get in the way; people whose hands are too close to the toy with which he is playing may inadvertently get scratched. He loves toys on a string that fly through the air, or balls that hop and skitter across the floor; for those who like to keep their paws just as manicured as he does, these toys are a safe bet.

Bobby was barely a year old when I first met him, a full-grown cat who was still a kitten at heart. When he rough-housed, he was merely testing his limits, and he now knows how far others are willing to go when they play with him. If he wants to play rough, he lets his playmates know by swiftly flicking his tail, giving them time to decide whether they want the play session to continue. He's done a lot of growing up since then (he is nearly four years old!) and he's also watched a lot of roommates come and go. So if at first glance Bobby seems aloof or indifferent, don't let his too-cool-for-school demeanor fool you-- it's just a facade. He's like the stereotypical "bad boy" in those romantic dramas for teens: the handsome, brooding type who wears a leather jacket and drives a motorcycle and smokes cigarettes under the bleachers. The teachers may not like him, and he looks like a troublemaker from a distance, but as soon as people get to know him, they discover he has a heart of gold. That's Bobby!

I'm admitting my kitty crush here in hopes of alerting more people to this absolute gem of a cat, this diamond in the rough. If there was any way I could afford to have another cat, I would have taken Bobby home years ago, but Bobby deserves to have a home long before I'll be able to provide one for him. He's waiting to meet someone who can see just how charming he really is, someone who isn't afraid to cut his nails, and someone who, like me, loves him because of-- and not in spite of-- that mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Will that lucky someone be you?

When Bobby is finally adopted (and I know he will be!), I will miss him terribly. I look forward to seeing him every week, but not nearly as much as I look forward to seeing his name on the colorful dry-erase board that lists recent adoptions. While every adoption is special, I suspect that Bobby's name will be surrounded by the hearts and exclamation points and smiley faces reserved for the extra-special adoptions of long-time, senior, or special-needs cats. In fact, I will likely put many of the hearts up there myself.

*Written as a contribution to The Scratching Post*