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*

Writing Prompts: Attempt #2

I'm really geeked about the essay writing class I'm taking-- an eight-week course that started on Monday. In addition to reading published essays, learning more about the form and structure of the genre, and critiquing our classmates' compositions, I found out that we will be given multiple writing prompts-- one in-class and one take-home prompt per week-- brief exercises meant to provide ideas, trigger memories, and create fodder for future essays. I'm not usually good at writing on command or working against the clock, but I was pretty impressed by what I was able to hammer out in 10 minutes, and on just my second attempt!

The prompt was to write about a treasured childhood object, and to describe why it was important and whether I still have it in my possession. The first thing that came to mind was a giant stuffed husky dog that I named King (after my neighbor's vicious German Shepherd, who I wanted-- more than anything-- to be able to pet). I apologize in advance if my memories are a little bit fuzzy, on account that half of the essay took place back when I was a toddler, but I'm excited that I was able to structure the essay as well as I did, in such a short amount of time. It's not a bad story, either, so here you go!

When I first got King, he stood almost as tall as I did. He wasn't the real dog I wanted, but he was the next-best thing, and as soon as I saw the life size, gray-and-white husky tucked behind the Christmas tree, I was in love. I dragged him around by his fluffy curved tail the way some kids tote a security blanket; when not in tow, he sat faithfully by my bedside, pink felt tongue lolling out of his furry, toothless mouth. I loved that dog to pieces. Literally. When I finally split his seams (from sitting on him like he was a pony) my mom promised to sew him back up for me. He was added to the sewing pile in the back of the closet-- a pile which, sadly, grew as I grew.

I had all but forgotten about my faithful stuffed companion until years later, when I was home on break from college. I noticed an ad in the paper announcing that the "Teddy Bear's Clinic" was coming to the local zoo, stitching up the seams and reattaching the limbs of the well-loved, stuffed animals of children everywhere. I practically leaped out of my chair and set my alarm to get up early the next morning; I was taking King to the "vet". My mother, horrified, kept protesting that I couldn't go-- I was 22!-- but I didn't care.

When I woke up the next morning, however, I couldn't believe my eyes. King was sitting in the dining room-- glass eyes cloudy with age and his coat grimy with dust, and he leaned a little to the left-- but he was intact. As it turns out, my mother rescued him from the sewing projects pile in the closet and stayed up the better part of the night to make good on her decades-old promise to me, and to avoid the embarrassment of having her grown child go stand in line with a bunch of six-year-olds, waiting to be reunited with a lifelong friend.

I think this prompt-writing exercise will be kind of fun, although I'm having a much harder time with my take-home prompt, which is to describe a dinner conversation between myself and a (deceased) celebrity. What would we talk about and what would each of us order? Huh. I'd love to have dinner with Leonard Bernstein, but aside from wanting him to be alive, 60 years younger, unmarried, and straight (so I could go on a date with him!) I don't really know what else I should say! Stay tuned, though... I just might figure it out... and if any of these future prompt-writing exercises turn out well, I just might post them, too.

ICE STORM: 2010

Or should the title of this post be: "The Meteorologists who Cried Wolf"? That's certainly a more fitting description of the apocalyptic forecasts that cut into regular broadcasts as "breaking news" and "developing stories"; when will these local news stations come to the realization that weather forecasts are usually not that interesting, and to sensationalize things like precipitation as much as they do really only does more harm than good?

I'm not sure when this edgy, hardcore style of weather forecasting came into vogue exactly, but I'm guessing it started around the same time those 24-hour news and weather channels began appearing on cable. I know there are people out there who can watch the Weather Channel for hours; they're absolutely mesmerized by the 10-minute loop of local, regional, and national forecasts. I, for one, am not one of them. In fact, meteorologists, the less you have to report, the more I tend to like you!

The study of weather is generally not that exciting, and for the life of me, I can't imagine why newscasters are trying to make it exciting. Here in Chicago, for example, snowfall should not be breaking news. Unless we're about to be blanketed in two feet of the stuff-- during rush hour, coupled with 45-mile-per-hour winds-- then save it. There is no need to trump the real news of the day by reporting-- live, from outside the studio-- that it is in fact snowing, or send some rookie reporter to go stand on an overpass so they can confirm that-- live, from the suburbs-- it's snowing there, too. I can look out my window and figure that out!

I know some of the national news agencies like to send meteorologists to the beach to report from the eye of a hurricane or to a corn field in the path of an oncoming tornado to spice up the weather reports and increase ratings. That is also stupid. It is not cutting-edge journalism, it is foolhardy and dangerous, because even the best meteorologist is wrong a fair amount of the time... If only my job(s) allowed even half as much room for error... But back to the latest forecast, which ranged from copious amounts of freezing rain, dangerous ice accumulations, and nightmarish commutes... none of you Chicagoland meteorologists were even close! Maybe that was true in IOWA, but if you wanted to milk your on-air time like that, you should have gone and filled in on an affiliate station over there!

That's why Tom Skilling is my guy; he doesn't get all doomsday over every little upper-air disturbance. He tells it like it is, gets it right more than any of the rest of you, and we can all get on with our day. My only beef with him is that he gets so involved with tracking jet streams and explaining the composition of cumulo-nimbus clouds that-- by the time he gets to the actual forecast-- I've tuned out and have to wait around for another 20 minutes to catch the 7-day at the end of the news broadcast.

So the next time you all decide to forecast the "storm of the century", you had better be able to justify your radical predictions. You're losing your credibility with viewers (like me!), and I'll kindly thank you to quit freaking me out, especially on the days when I have to drive all over the suburbs. And if you aren't already familiar with the children's story about the boy who cried "wolf", I suggest you pick up a copy. I think you'll find it a fascinating read. Oh, and while you're at it, try to see if you can figure out a way to apply the moral of the story to your professional lives... it'll give you something to do on the days (like today!) when there's not much to report from the weather center.

GET OUTTA MY WAY!

That's how my turbo-kick class started; its theme song, if you will. Yes, you read that correctly. After about 6 months of watching from afar (a.k.a. the elliptical), I decided to bite the bullet and try the cardio-kickboxing class offered by my neighborhood gym. It looked intense, but seemed to require slightly less coordination than the confounding zumba classes I attended with a friend in the fall. And besides, with all the resolutioners clogging up the gyms this time of year, this would be as good a time as any to start, because surely there'd be other first-timers there. And with so many newbies, they'd have to explain some of the moves, right?

Wrong. I listened to the Pilates instructor give the class before mine a five-minute lecture on how to properly stretch out your hamstring, but as soon as the mats were rolled up and we took our places on the over-crowded floor, the music started blasting and away we went. In a matter of seconds, I found myself frantically trying to mimic the seriously buff (and overly aggressive) instructor; kicking, punching, and weaving my way through one seriously high-energy workout.

She was calling out instructions: "Hook! Jab, cut!" and "Kick it back! Knee it up!" and I had no idea what any of it meant. I was all: monkey-see, monkey-do. When the percussive song "Get outta my way" (with lyrics along the same vein) came on, she roared, "Windmill!", and began flailing her arms and legs, kicking and punching and hitting whatever imaginary obstacle was in her way. While she looked formidable, I looked like a damn fool.

I came home and immediately looked up the different punches. I'm doing my homework on this because I plan on going back tomorrow (and because I don't want to hurt myself). The workout was hard but fun; I can see how people swear it's addicting, but I can also see how the numbers of participants will thin out dramatically in the next few weeks. I'm in pretty good shape (even though I don't look it right now) and was able to hang; I didn't get all of the moves, but I was able to keep moving. I can't say the same for the gaggle of wheezing, middle-aged Hispanic ladies behind me; one was halfheartedly punching the air while trying to talk on her cell phone, and another disappeared into the locker room after about 10 minutes.

Is this something new and different for me? Most definitely. Was I sore the next day? You betcha. Will I stick with it? Schedule permitting, yes! And next time, all you insincere resolutioners, you had better GET OUTTA MY WAY, cuz I'm kicking butts and taking names!