Christmas Day
Christmas Day
So I had my little conversation with bank district manager. He has a face like plaster, never smiles, never changes. Eyes like marbles. Mister Stiff. Is that your Hummer out back I asked. Yes. Does it make you feel like your part of the war effort? Like you’re driving through Baghdad liberating the ungrateful Iraqis? Mister Stone Face stared at me. Is there something wrong with my car? Yes, I said, it’s a military vehicle that you drive through my civilian neighborhood; and furthermore, there are twice as many cameras in here as there were last years, there are new dividing walls around the desks so that it looks like a police booking station, there’s a camera right here staring at my face, and there’s a fingerprint ink pad; and the district manager drives a Hummer. Yes, I would say there’s something wrong with your car. This whole place is turning into a fortress. Mister Stone Face never blinked. I was cashing a check. How would like your cash? In cash, I say. Without changing a molecule of his personality he counted out three twenties and a few ones. Thanks, I said and walked out.
Now when he sees me he moves away. There’s a young woman teller there who when things are not too busy will have a conversation with me. She had never heard of depleted uranium. She has now…
It’s been too long since I’ve written in this thing. I don’t think I can fill in everything but I’ll skim around. We had a snow storm – well, in Seattle terms. Shut everything down for a day or so. A lot of ice everywhere. Too many hills, the buses couldn’t run. I had a dentist appointment and had to go downtown, which was fairly easy but by the time I was headed back it getting real cold in the shadows of late afternoon. My bus took me half way and then stopped. The driver put everybody off and told us to cross the street over there and there’ll be shuttle. A frozen man on the other side where we were supposed to wait said that he had been there for two and a half hours and nothing had come. I walked the rest of the way.
The neighbor’s pipes burst, which is on the same line as ours. The whole thing had to be dug up and wee had no water for a couple of days. Then the wind storm hit with gusts up to seventy miles an hour. Sounded like low flying planes. We have a lot of big trees around. Luckily nothing hit our house but we all lost power and a lot of trees went down all over town. Big ones crashing into houses and across the roads. A big tree by the bank fell over onto a car and crushed it. It wasn’t the Hummer. That’s a shame.
This is Christmas day and things are just getting back to normal for the weather. Cold but not freezing. Seattle weather. I just booked my ticket for England. I’m flying out in three weeks. I really excited about this trip. I haven’t been there in ages. I like the agent a lot. I think this might be a turning point into better working times. That would be great.
I’ll fill in more soon….
So I had my little conversation with bank district manager. He has a face like plaster, never smiles, never changes. Eyes like marbles. Mister Stiff. Is that your Hummer out back I asked. Yes. Does it make you feel like your part of the war effort? Like you’re driving through Baghdad liberating the ungrateful Iraqis? Mister Stone Face stared at me. Is there something wrong with my car? Yes, I said, it’s a military vehicle that you drive through my civilian neighborhood; and furthermore, there are twice as many cameras in here as there were last years, there are new dividing walls around the desks so that it looks like a police booking station, there’s a camera right here staring at my face, and there’s a fingerprint ink pad; and the district manager drives a Hummer. Yes, I would say there’s something wrong with your car. This whole place is turning into a fortress. Mister Stone Face never blinked. I was cashing a check. How would like your cash? In cash, I say. Without changing a molecule of his personality he counted out three twenties and a few ones. Thanks, I said and walked out.
Now when he sees me he moves away. There’s a young woman teller there who when things are not too busy will have a conversation with me. She had never heard of depleted uranium. She has now…
It’s been too long since I’ve written in this thing. I don’t think I can fill in everything but I’ll skim around. We had a snow storm – well, in Seattle terms. Shut everything down for a day or so. A lot of ice everywhere. Too many hills, the buses couldn’t run. I had a dentist appointment and had to go downtown, which was fairly easy but by the time I was headed back it getting real cold in the shadows of late afternoon. My bus took me half way and then stopped. The driver put everybody off and told us to cross the street over there and there’ll be shuttle. A frozen man on the other side where we were supposed to wait said that he had been there for two and a half hours and nothing had come. I walked the rest of the way.
The neighbor’s pipes burst, which is on the same line as ours. The whole thing had to be dug up and wee had no water for a couple of days. Then the wind storm hit with gusts up to seventy miles an hour. Sounded like low flying planes. We have a lot of big trees around. Luckily nothing hit our house but we all lost power and a lot of trees went down all over town. Big ones crashing into houses and across the roads. A big tree by the bank fell over onto a car and crushed it. It wasn’t the Hummer. That’s a shame.
This is Christmas day and things are just getting back to normal for the weather. Cold but not freezing. Seattle weather. I just booked my ticket for England. I’m flying out in three weeks. I really excited about this trip. I haven’t been there in ages. I like the agent a lot. I think this might be a turning point into better working times. That would be great.
I’ll fill in more soon….
posted by Jim Page at 1:40 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Jim...
Loved the "Hummer" follow up...
This is why I am proud to call you a friend...you heard the cry of your original blog searching for it's twin separated at birth!
Big holidays squeeze
Baba
Just a brief note about an incident that happened to a friend of mine ~ 20 years ago. He was in his early 20’s working an honest living as a framer. The work was physically hard but enjoyable to someone who loved to build tree houses as a kid. Every other Friday was payday. After working a 10 – 12 hour day in Portland weather he would pull up to the drive in window and produce his endorsed check, and ID. They would tell him he had to go into the bank and get the bank managers ok before they would cash the check. He would explain that he was tired and dirty and ask if there was any form of ID that would allow him to cash the check at the window. He would be told that if he would only open an account he could avoid going inside. This pissed him off so that week after week he made the trip trailing mud and sawdust into the bank. As he was waiting in the bank managers line after one particularly long, cold, rainy Friday the person behind him said, “I get so tired of doing this” and he replied, “Me too. I’m going to ask my employer to change banks so I don’t have to keep doing this”. The bank manager overheard and asked him to repeat what he said. He did and the manager said, “I don’t think I feel like cashing your check today”.
Years later my friend found another profession, he sold marijuana. He could afford nice clothes and never had to get dirty or work too hard. He couldn’t get over the respect and friendliness when he walked into a bank to deposit or withdraw laundered money.
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