Bye, Rob

LMFAO number two was another bank, a really big one, without the capacity to draw on the quaint, local ineptitude of the smaller bank, lacking the natural piteous understanding that smallness can foster.  It's easier to ascribe bad motives to size.  I called the number on the statement. I spoke to Casey - who was mighty and was not going to strike out - and provided her with account numbers and addresses and stuff.  I tried to waylay her preliminary pursuit of information that I wasn't going to be able to provide by repeatedly stating that I just wanted to know what kinds of documentation they were going to require so that I could close the account. I was wise to the process at this point - these people weren't going to let me do anything until I sent in a lot more stuff.  I didn't actually want them to do anything but tell me what else I needed to do.

"Casey," I said.  "I don't want to close the account - I just want to send in the supporting documentation that your bank undoubtedly requires."

She dithered about, at one point asking me for my social security number "to see if they had that on record" before deciding that she wasn't the right person to handle this matter.  She transferred me to Dan.  Dan was pretty nice, too - I didn't catch what department he worked for - but he decided he wasn't the right person, either, and right quick.  He told me that I would have to contact the branch where my parents originally opened the account and that they would be able to help close the account up.  He gave me the name of the manager and told me all I'd have to do would be to stop in at the bank and they'd be able to help me out.

"Dan," I said.  "I'm calling from Vacation City." 

"Oh," Dan said.  He paused.  "So you aren't coming into town anytime soon?"

This would have been funny if this would have been the first LMFAO that I had dealt with that day.  It was still pretty funny.

"No, Dan," I said kindly.  "I'm not going to fly into town to close this fucking bank account."  I know he could tell I was smiling when I said it.  He was so pleased by my tone that he offered to transfer my call to the local branch so that I wouldn't have to do anything.

"Bye, Dan," I said.

Rob Killinger was next on the hit parade.

"Hi, Rob," I said brightly.  "Could I speak to Stephanie Crawford, please?"

Rob wanted to know why I wanted to speak with her?  Had I been working with her previously?

"Dan suggested I call her," I said vaguely.

Well, Rob told me that he could help me do everything that I wanted to do.  All I had to do to get the process started was send him something called an "Entry Appointing Fiduciary - Letter of Authority."

"Bye, Rob," I said.

LMFAO

Vortex:  A whirlwind, whirlpool, or similarly moving matter in the form of a spiral or column; (figuratively): anything that involves constant violent or chaotic activity around some center.

I was zero for three today.  That's a percentage of roughly . . . let's see . . . carry the three . . . subtract seven . . . nothing.  There is no number associated with that mathematical computation. It is not a definable equation.  You can divide three into zero until the large pulsating, veins on your forehead rupture and you die, and the answer WILL NOT VARY, and this is what I accomplished today.

I got up and had a nice devotion, nursing a lovely cup of coffee; a not-too-agonizing swim, always good for my mental health, helping as it does in burning off nervous energy and the effects of the coffee which I do not need; a nice sit in the park with another cup of coffee - refueling the anxiety of the first cup of coffee that the swim had defeated - and the paper.  I arrived home in fine fettle and high spirits, determined to wade into the Large and Massive Financial Organization (or LMFO - Laughing My Fucking Ass Off - I know, I know, I was too lazy to figure out how to get an 'A' into the acronym) gene pool and emerge victorious on the other side.  Or at least not clearly defeated.

The first LMFO was an immovable object and it was really a small bank.  I ran into a brick wall.  Two weeks ago I had contacted these people and nice guy named Dave, flourishing the unmistakable accent of The Old City, helped me get the proper documentation together to close this particular bank account.  It required, of course, a notarized form that had to be faxed in. This meant a trip to the bank and some wheedling to let them use their fax machine.

These documents were sucked into the vortex as so many of them are.  I imagine a parlor in hell where billions of financial documents are swirling around in tornadic winds.  Most of us imagine hell as being very hot - I see an onslaught of paper cuts.
  
Today I spoke to Noel, the Christmas scrivener.  Noel and I were together for about 45 minutes, including long stretches of time when she disappeared, leaving me to endure a particularly horrific loop of "Strangers in the Night."  She never had good news when she came back.  In fact, the news got worse and worse.  She was always asking me questions about the address on file and the account numbers and beneficiaries and countering my answers, taken right off the account statement in front of me, with: "No, that's not right."  I became increasingly agitated. Finally, she came back and explained that there was now another name on the account - in addition to my father's - and that I couldn't do anything without that person's consent.  This was news to me.  I assumed my dad had put my sister's name on the account so she could help with his bills but Noel couldn't - or wouldn't! - confirm any of this.

"Restraint of tongue and pen," right?  Up to that point I had behaved pretty well although I couldn't help pointing out that Dave didn't tell me any of this two weeks ago when it would have been the best time to tell me.

"So, let me get this right," I said.  "I faxed all this stuff in and you people weren't going to do anything to let me know I had sent in the wrong stuff?"

Noel was sorry.  Noel couldn't address Dave's motives or mindset.

I was toast so I decided to terminate the call.

"OK, Mr. Seaweed," said Noel.  "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

There it was again.  There was that question.  Now I assume that these poor workers have to say that.  They all say it so I guess it's in there script.  It blew me up.

I interrupted her: "Why are you asking me that? You haven't helped me with anything yet so how could you help me with something else?  Else is an adjective which means another."

I didn't go on for very long.  I was vaguely aware that getting into a semantic argument about linguistics with a young person working at a bank, probably making a shit wage, was not going to advance my wage.

LMFAO one - Seaweed zero.

QA For Seaweed

Assurance:  The state of being assured; firm persuasion; full confidence or trust; freedom from doubt; certainty. 

I have decided to screw with the insensate minds of the all of the financial institutions that I can find.  At this point I'm not all that concerned if I even have any business to conduct with any particular institution - I just want to fuck these people up.  I have been trying to parcel out the self-inflicted yet unavoidable pain in small doses, partially because this helps me work on my patience and tolerance, and partially, to be fair, to give an institution some time to process whatever request of mine that they're currently ignoring.

When I was still in the working world my job entailed selling diagnostic equipment used in industrial applications.  Initially, the most important part of the process was asking the right questions to find out exactly what the problem was so that I could figure out if I had a solution and what that solution entailed.  Over the years I saw a lot of different applications so I was pretty good at tailoring my approach.  I'd intuit what the problem was going to be, asking pretty targeted questions.  Still, it was a game - I had to direct the flow of the conversation so that the people I was dealing with would give me the information I needed.  People like to talk and they don't always know the point of the questions being asked - I knew the point and I was the guy who needed to know the point.  I was constantly trying to wrangle wandering engineers back into the fold.

When I call the institutions up I feel like I have to devise a clever line of questioning so that I can find out what they need from me.  They don't often tell me what this is or they talk and talk and talk before getting to the point.  Or they don't have the thing that I've already sent them - this is very popular.  I don't know why these people have fax machines - the faxes never seem to end up where they're supposed to go.  When they say: "You'll need to fax those documents to us" I now realize this is shorthand for: "Why don't you just take that shit, feed it through a paper shredder, and then use it to start the campfire you're going to need to cook the elk you'll be forced to kill so that you can survive because you're not getting any fucking money from us."  
They don't say that, of course, because "this conversation is being recorded for quality assurance purposes."  I want to ask them what they're trying to improve, exactly.

Relaxed Seaweed

Relief:  The feeling associated with the removal of stress or discomfort.

I was mulling over the different reaction that alcoholics and earth people have to alcohol.  It is, ahem, striking.  I love the reaction we get in meetings when we describe what happens when we insert alcohol into our blood stream.  The reaction of our fellows is visceral and universal, and it is foreign to people without a drinking problem.

My schtick about the first time I had a beer goes something like this: "I could feel the alcohol move inch by inch down my throat, warming me as it traveled.  My stomach accepted the delivery - the clouds parted, a beam of bright sunlight struck me in the face, the angels sang.  I knew I had found the solution to all of my problems."

I exaggerate everything but that is the god honest truth.

Earth people have a drink to relax.  I have a visual of someone, weary, plopping down in a comfortable chair set up in a meadow or along the shore of a lake.  You know - relaxing, calm. Mild worries collect themselves and stroll away, chattering quietly among themselves.

And then there's the drunk.  He has been fighting off vicious, blood-thirsty, heavily-armed Mongol hordes from the moment he opened his eyes.  Wave after wave after wave of monsters.  He takes the drink and gains some momentum, fending them off.  He pours a vat of hot acid on the hordes and they bubble away.

That's the way it is.  It's relief is what it is.  It's not fun or pleasant or enjoyable.  It's a victory over misery.

Cash That Check, Boy

Today I'm going to write about my further trials and tribulations - travails, really - with the Large Financial Institutions who seem to hate me so very, very much, who seem to do things deliberately to me.  I'm going to do this to honor my friend Edrom because he seems to take such an out-sized pleasure in the way the financial universe is treating me, a pleasure so extreme that it would threaten to tear at the fabric of a long and dear friendship.

(Ed. Historical Note: {Ed. Note: I'm not sure how a normal note differs from a historical note but there you go}.  Many years ago a bank that Edrom was dealing with - and I'm somewhat fuzzy about the exact details but I think I do have the general jist of the story correct, and if I don't I'll just make up some shit like I usually do, and part of the problem here is that I'm sure I was only half listening to whatever it was he was complaining about at the time, which doesn't sound like an output of a lot of listening power, but trust me, 50% is almost unheard of - sent some of his money to someone who wasn't, in fact, him.  I don't recall if it was someone with the same name or if it went to someone with a completely different name.   A clumsy mistake, to be sure, but not horrific.  Correctable.  L'affaire took a sinister turn when this individual cashed the check.  Maybe he didn't pay any attention or maybe his intentions were evil and perverse - this we'll never know.  The point is that it took Edrom quite a bit of time to get his money back.  I don't think I thought it was funny at the time but I think it's funny now until I remember that I can't get my dad's . . . well, you get the point.

So three of my father's six accounts at the most evil of all of the evil institutions have been massaged into a stupor.  That leaves three in active convulsions, dancing a monetary St. Vitus Dance, if my math is correct.  Yesterday I received a letter showing that one of the accounts was closed and the money was transferred.  Somewhere.  I don't know where.  It was there and now it's gone.  There is an account number associated with the place where the money now rests but it doesn't show up in my account and it's gone from my dad's account.  Voila!  It's gone!

I call The Institution.

"I can't see the funds in my account," I said.

"Yes," the guy says.  "That's right.  It has been transferred into your account but it's in a different account that you can't see."

"I just said that," I pointed out.  I didn't throw gasoline on the fire by asking why this is so.  I've learned with these people to keep it as simple as possible.  He offered to mail me the form to fill out so that I could see the money or have it electronically transferred to Mars or to get a check. He could mail me a check right now! but it would go to my dad's address.  My dad doesn't live there any more for obvious reasons.  I was vaguely aware that GWPMO should have done this correctly the first time so I wouldn't have to do it again but that falls under the accelerant category.  

4 out of 6 done.  3 months later.

Soldier On

Soldier:  (V) To continue.

My sponsor talks about soldiering on, moving through a thing, taking the next step to the best of my ability.  We laugh about an old commercial for Fram Oil Filters where a crusty, grizzled grease monkey is trying to sell the concept of a more expensive oil filter.

"You can pay me now," he says.  Pause for dramatic emphasis.  "Or you can pay me later."

Sometimes, of course, it's hard to tell what that means.  I know that I need to take action to get through some unpleasantness or the other but I also know that I can't always banish the unpleasantness in a way that seems timely or efficient.  Step forward - see what happens.  Do I find myself a little further up the slope or do I slip on some gravel and slide right back to where I started or, worse yet, fall off the trail and end up in some sticker bushes?  I guess the idea is to kick the can down the road to the best of my ability.  I guess the idea is that I have no idea what the hell is going on most of the time.

As a mortal enemy of unpleasantness - think mongoose versus cobra - my goal is to get the discomfort away from me ASAP.  Alas, I've learned that this is something that is often out of my control.  All I can do is manage the effort, the work, and see what happens.  I don't even know what's supposed to happen, either.  I think I do, some of the time, but I suspect that I'm fooling myself.  I labor under the illusion that my god wants me to avoid pain and collect pleasure.  My god doesn't even laugh when I say this.  He doesn't even look up from the book he's reading, something trashy with a lot of cuss words.  It just never occurs to me that the pain I occasionally go through is what I'm supposed to be going through.  I was meant to be in those sticker bushes.

Full Deck: A word or phrase used to euphemistically refer to another person's being crazy or deranged.  

As you can see, I'm not working with a full deck.

Paused To Breathe

What can I tell you?  Sometimes I have something to say and sometimes I don't, although in either case I have no trouble running my mouth.

I have some increasing peace of mind.  I am walking through it.  I am soldiering, trudging, slogging.  Sometimes it's a walk in the park and sometimes it's a grim death march.

I did not sign up for the bad shit.  The bad shit is highly overrated.  I could do without the bad shit even though I know I get nowhere without it.

There are no bad things, only growth opportunities.

Why did I surmise I would react to something in a certain way?  I'm lucky if I can find my car keys half the time.  I'm going to parse a complex emotional response to a life-changing event?  

I have spent a week - a holiday week, true 'dat, with only four business days, but still - not prodding and poking at any governmental organizations or large financial concerns.  Part of my reasoning is that I have taken a number of steps toward resolution and I need to wait for a response.  The other part is that I couldn't face the bastards again.  They will not win but they have worn down my resolve.  Temporarily.  My inactivity has been met by a stony silence.

I don't have anything to write about if I'm not outraged at my misfortune.