I owe a sincere thanks to all stupers (short, as most of you know, for unmistakably stupid persons) who faithfully dawdle across my path guaranteeing me ample material for my stupidity studies. The latest incarnation of stupidity involved stuper employees in a local bank branch.
My mom and I entered a bank in which we both had an account so that she (key word here) could open a checking account. We met with Rocky, an assistant Vice President; he asked if I too desired to open a checking account. My response was not “Maybe” or “Ask me again in five minutes” or “What’s your favorite color M&M?” but rather the clearly enunciated words,
“No, thank you.”
I mentioned to Rocky that I’d recently moved, and Rocky kindly updated my information. Or so I thought. Then we left.
Mom, once in her home, examined her transaction receipt and noticed that the barely hour old checking account was actually opened in my name. She called, spoke to Rocky, who assured her he’d fix the error.
Fast-forward two weeks.
I reach into my mailbox and remove a small cardboard box that looks suspiciously like a box of checks because… it is a box of checks. And they arrive addressed to… surprise! Me! And with my name on each and every check.
To add insult to injury, as I sorted my mail, I noticed a postage due envelope that required $2.75 for the box of checks, mailed not just without proper postage, but without any freaking postage!
So they managed to send the box of checks to my current address and then made sure to print the wrong address on the checks themselves. Just to mix things up, no doubt. Or to prove, finally and without any lingering question, that they were indeed stupers.
I called and spoke to Assistant Manager, Nick. He apologized, promising they’d fix the matter immediately and send new corrected checks to my mother. I asked him what they’d like me to do with the incorrect checks.
“Should I rip them up and throw them away?”
His telltale response, “Sure, you can shred them or you can use them.”
Dear readers, do you think I should use checks I don’t want and that, more importantly, contain the wrong address? True, it might delay the District Attorney’s office in locating me, but I think it would be most inappropriate. Plus, it was my mom’s account, after all.
I discovered that the whole checking account fiasco was my own doing. Firstly, I should keep my money in a private bank, one that provides clients with dedicated financial expertise. My bank provided me with dilapidated financial inexpertness as well as incompetence.
Secondly, I recently read in Departures magazine that the right private bank can minimize my taxes, put together an estate plan, build an art collection (that alone got my attention), open checking accounts, offer money management classes to educate teens, hook me up with theater tickets and possibly even fish out a diamond tennis bracelet out of a full-size dumpster (where were they when I needed them?).
There’s just one slight hitch; private bank accounts must be in the seven figure range.
If I get moving on those inaccurately marked checks, I may be able to gather a few million into a Swiss numbered account and have time to flee to a small village just west of Boligrafo, Chile by the time my bank notices and takes action. If they notice. Then once it blows over, I can open up my very own private bank account and be treated properly.
The problem with popular thinking is that it doesn’t require you to think at all ~ Kevin Myers
Keli