The bank only offers you an umbrella after the rain has stopped

My bank should love me but it sure doesn’t seem that way

I went across the street late last night to deposit a check that had arrived in the mail. The miserable check was payment for an article that was submitted about 6 months ago and was finally published in February. The mall was closing up shop when I walked in and the bank was gone. Vanished. The windows plastered over with sheets of white paper.

“Where’s the bank?” I asked the cleaner. She shrugged meaning:

• I don’t know.
• I don’t care.
• I don’t understand English. I only arrived in this country from (Insert name of any third-world country) 2 days ago.

I eventually found someone who pointed across the street to a new building. I dropped the now irritating check in the deposit box at the bank.

At the same time I resolved in the future to work only with My Personal Money Store using Installment Loans to weave my way through the month.

The bank pays attention to me now

I used to have a bank account with money in it. In these days of financial stress I maintain an overdraft at the bank. It is not huge, but it seems to glow in a psychedelic red that draws every bank official’s attention to it whenever they walk anywhere near. So I get lots of mail and e-mails from the bank. Some offer me loans – they want me to build on my overdraft. Some say nice things like “please attend to your overdraft” and others threaten like “Attend to the matter of your overdraft immediately. If you have already done so please ignore this letter.” No matter how angry they get, they don’t want to stab me fatally!

I don’t like the bank

The bank is not my friend. There was time, a few years ago, when I would bump into the manager at the fast food court in the mall and twice we sat and ate together, discussing important stuff like the weather and the girls strolling by. I was convinced the guy was human. Before I could build on our friendship, they moved him and we got a dragon in his place. She does not greet me and did not even give me a calendar in December, a sure sign that I am at the bottom of the list.

But you can depend on the bank. At one second past midnight on the first of every month I hear a ‘ting’ on my computer and an email slides in from the bank, listing the bank charges for the past month. The bank charges me:

• For depositing a check into my account
• For withdrawing money from my account
• For making a payment to someone from my account
• For breathing anywhere near my account

This is despite the many letters I write to the bank reminding them that any money in my account is mine.

Grandpa’s bank philosophy

I once mentioned to my very wise old grandfather that I needed to go to the bank for something or other and he said, “forget about the bank, my boy. They will never help you. The bank only comes out and offers you an umbrella after the rain has stopped.”

If I ever have any money, it’ll be under the mattress!