Bank Robber

Lemme tell y'all a little story about the time I robbed a bank...

The other day I go to my bank ~ which is different from my-and-hubby's bank and isn't really my bank. It's my account that I've had for over 10 years in California through a credit union. I use this account for all my online stuff, so most everything gets deposited or withdrawn automatically, but occasionally, I need to make an actual-live-person-transaction (I'm the live person, and ATM's suit me fine, I don't need them to provide an actual-live-person). When I got to Texas, I researched the live-person-transaction angle, and found out that a credit union three towns over was part of the co-op, so every few months, I'd make the journey to physically deposit whatever was needed into this account to keep my online life going for however many more months...

I go over there Monday, during my pre-daughter-visit-massive-holy-hell-runaround to find... that they've moved. Yeah. Y'all know I'm directionally challenged and get lost in a strip-mall, so this bit of info did not sit well with me to begin with, nor did I really have an apeload of time to play Columbus and try to find the new location, but I did anyway...

The sign on the door of the old location says that they have moved to one of the busiest intersections in town with three of the four corners containing Texas-versions of strip malls. See, in both California and New Jersey, a strip mall is exactly that ~ a strip of a parking lot with stores located in a row in the back of the parking lot, and possibly some along one side as well. Not so in Texas. Because "EVERYTHING is bigger in Texas" ~ and more confusing too. Texas strip malls are multi-layered. The parking lots are a New-York-City-block square, and the buildings can be anywhere. They can be at the front of the lot in their own little building facing the street. They can be in the back of the lot facing the backs of the other stores up front. They can be on the side of the lot facing the other store's parking lots. They can also be on the side of any building anywhere, just for fun. It simply depends on who paid how much for what because they want to be in that particular strip mall. Some buildings are older-n-dirt, while others are standing where Subway had it's parking lot two months ago. It's a crap-shoot in every strip mall. Ahhh the glories of Texas-ness.

So anyway, I get to where the new location is supposed to be ~ at the corner of Confusing and S.O.L. I start with the first Texas-Strip-mall I come to. Up and down the parking lot. In and out between buildings, around the sides, until I have visually inspected every square-foot-of building possible. No HFCU. I go through the light to the next one. Same drill weaving like a drunkard in between buildings, up and down the various sections of parking lot, all the while looking for HFCU and trying to not get hit by any one of the many, many non-American-driver-license-having-illegal-immigrants-we-go-when-we-want-as-fast-or-slow-as-we-want-and-btw-this-is-my-right-fuck-you-gringo other drivers in both lots. No HFCU.

Finally, in Texas-Strip-mall number three, I find, what is now, to me, 'effingHFCU despite the fact that they're too new to this strip mall to even have a sign up (aside from the mini-temporary one on ONE side of the building, which was not the side that I was on...). After a drive-go-round or two, I manage to find the one ATM. It's a drive-up ATM, which, at this point, totally works for me, but it doesn't take deposits. WTF? Crap. Now I have to deal with their actual-live-person and the compressed air canister send and receive thingey. Eye roll. So I fill out one of the old ATM envelopes from their other location that I'm increasingly loving and missing, and send it through the suction tube. But there's no one in the window. I know I made sure the light was green in this lane before I got in it, so I hit the call button. A month-of-Sundays later an infant appears and informs me, after inspecting my envelope and questioning me about this being a non-'effingHFCU account, that I need to fill out one of the forms in the tray before the big-ass-suction-tube-machine-housing.

I'm now doing Lamaze breathing techniques to keep my head from exploding irritation in check while I back up the car, retrieve one of these forms, pull forward again so I can once again reach the big-ass-suction-tube-machine, where I fill out the approved form with all the information that was already on the envelope that I sent through the first time. I re-insert into the canister too small for human hands, so I never removed the original unapproved deposit envelope my check, my new 'effingHFCU-teller-approved deposit slip with all the information, again into the suction tube, and wait.

Several minutes later, she now needs to see my drivers license. I've given up the Lamaze breathing and am now busting out with the I've-had-enough-of-your-bullshit-lady-do-the-fucking-transaction-already sigh-type-noises while I dig out of my ginormous sack my card wallet and extract my drivers license, put it into the tube with the rest of my stuff which 'effingHFCU lady has returned to me yet again, in hopes of pissing me off so I'll leave so I can add my license to the paperwork and re-send it one more time to her sanctimonious 'effingHFCU-employee-ass. eye roll so big I see my frontal lobe.

By now I'm convinced that this woman's customer service skills are such that she'd make a fantastic government employee. Having been a government employee myself at one point, I also think to myself that she would move up the ranks very quickly. Ms.-government-employee-star-'effingHFCU-teller-woman looks over each and every scrap of everything one more fucking time like she's never seen it before in her life, even though she's now been perusing this information in pieces for over 10 minutes now. I watch to see her start entering information like she's actually going to process my single-check-no-other-money-or-coin deposit now, which takes her another 3 minutes to inform me, as I hear the whoosh of the vacuum canister being returned to me, that since they've moved, this particular location of 'effingHFCU is no longer in the network and can not, even with the correct forms and my drivers license and my DNA and a locket of my first-born's hair process my deposit. She has jammed every trace of my transaction back into the canister ~ including her own scratch paper from the transaction, proving she has the IQ of a turnip as if trying to erase all unauthorized-contact with me from her perfect little day.

It takes me another 5 minutes to extract all of the pieces of my transaction back out of the canister that my hand will not fit into, and that has been jammed with such disdain and disgust at my stupidity for coming to her perfect little new branch, my original deposit envelope, my check, the correct deposit slip, my drivers license, her scratch paper, and her pen. After shaking the canister repeatedly, I get the pen to fall out, thereby giving me a tool to extract the rest of the papers and freeing my drivers license that is stuck all the way at the bottom. By now, I should have been the Hulk... and I'm so thankful in retrospect that I, unlike most Texans, do not carry a gun in my car. Instead, I did the next best thing that you can do to a bank-teller-wanna-be-government-employee type...

I stole her pen.