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Jewish World Review May 18, 2005 / 9 Iyar, 5765 Banking on your patience By David Grimes
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
To the person in the black SUV who honked at me while I was completing a transaction in the drive-through lane of my local bank the other day, I'd just like to say this: Phhhtttt!
That's not very mature response, I'll grant you, but I really don't care. What I really wanted to do was get out of my car and whack the hood of his gas-guzzling behemoth with one of those plastic-tube thingies that are so difficult to open. (And I would have done it, too, if the dog hadn't been in the car with me and if I hadn't been wearing a new golf shirt and if the sun wasn't slanting from the wrong direction.)
If you can't sit patiently for three minutes — five, tops — while the person in front of you withdraws some money from his checking account, there's something seriously wrong with you. (Yes, yes, I know; most people use an ATM card for that sort of stuff. Well, I had one once, but my wife took it away from me. It's a long story and not really one I want to get into today. OK?)
It's a complicated process withdrawing money from the drive-through. It requires total concentration and more than a little hand-eye coordination. First, you need to hit the "call" button and tell the teller what you want. Then she tells you that she'll need to see your driver's license. So you try to wrench your wallet out of your back pocket, but you realize you've forgotten to unbuckle your seat belt, so you do that, but then you discover that the arm you were reaching around with to get your wallet has become entangled with the now-unbuckled seat belt.
After a few back-wrenching contortions, you manage to extricate your arm from the seat belt and retrieve your wallet, which is thicker than a J.K. Rowling novel due to all the credit cards, insurance cards, discount coupons (all of them expired), receipts, reminders and half-eaten Big Macs stuffed inside. You find your driver's license (always located on the bottom of the stack of cards), insert it into the tube, and then promptly drop the tube, which rolls underneath your car.
There's not enough room to open the driver's-side door, so you crawl over the center console, which the dog interprets as a signal that you want to play. After what seems like hours — actually only 10 minutes, 15 tops — you make it to the passenger seat, at which point the dog jumps into your lap, stomping a part of the male anatomy that should never be stomped upon. Dizzy with pain, you lurch out of the car and retrieve the tube, acquiring a large grease stain on your new golf shirt in the process.
You squirm over to the driver's side again and put the tube in the machine, which sucks it upward with a mighty WHOOSH. You would think your money would be arriving next, but, alas, it does not. The teller wants you to sign a receipt and return it to her. Unfortunately, she has not included a pen with which to do this. So you root around in your glove compartment for a pen. For a moment, you think you've found one, but it turns out to be the tire-pressure gauge.
But the transaction has only lasted 20 minutes at this point — 45 tops — so you calmly return the tube to the teller and ask her if she could provide a pen. A pen is supplied, you sign the receipt, WHOOSH it off in the machine and imagine all the wild and crazy things you're going to do with that $20 bill, once it arrives.
It's here! No! It's a biscuit for the dog! The dog is extremely pleased, but the guy behind me in the black SUV clearly is not, as it is at this point that he taps his horn.
Some people, I swear.
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JWR contributor David Grimes is a columnist for The Sarasota Herald Tribune. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, Sarasota Herald Tribune |
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