March 29, 2007

Haven't seen you in ages, but it's not as bleak as it seems.

I had the most amazing conversation today.

The payroll department: It's payday! Yay! We've just put a lot of money into your bank account.
My credit union: You have three dollars and twenty-two cents.
Me: Payroll department, are you sure you put a lot of money into my bank account?
Payroll department: By golly, yes! Lots of money!
Credit union: You have three dollars and twenty-two cents.
Me: Okay, I've got work to do. You guys figure this out.

Later....

Me: Hey, credit union, how about it?
Credit union: You have three dollars and twenty-two cents.
Cingular: How would you feel about paying us a bunch of money? There's no time like the present, you know.
Federal government: Congratulations on your recent graduation and perhaps now would be a good time to think about paying back your loans? For your convenience we have helped ourselves to some dollars which were just laying around in your bank account and we didn't think you were using them.
Payroll department: Here is your lots of money! This time we promise!
Credit union: You have three dollars and twenty-two cents.

Various financial entities: We do suspicious things with your money in the dark while you're not looking.
Me: But I want to buy tomatoes and art supplies and t-shirts and eat food with my beloved sister and pay off my IOUs to my friends.
Payroll department: We think that tomorrow might be a nice day for lots of money. If not, we are closed tomorrow please don't ask us any questionshaveaniceweekend.

Evidently my credit union, which has managed to deal responsibly with every other direct deposit transaction the library has thrown at it, has decided this time to pick up my paycheck, look wildly left and right, and then heave itself up out of the ground and run away to Mexico, cackling and leaving mahogany desks and tasteful potted plants strewn in the road behind it. At least, this is the impression given me by the library payroll department, which insisted indignantly all day that it had already seen my money safely to its door, kissed it chastely on the cheek, and driven off with a clear conscience. There's not a whole hell of a lot I can do about it -- I spent today alternating between going over to payroll myself and sending my boss to plead on my behalf, and all it got me was a stack of my department's other employees' paychecks handed to me to deliver if you wouldn't mind, thank you, don't worry about your own paycheck it's already in your account, now get out of here. Sigh.

After work I accepted an invitation to eat with a couple of my co-workers, one of whom, having heard me beating my head against my desk all day, kindly offered to buy my dinner. The gesture was generous and the food lovely, but at the end of it my sponsor found himself short on cash looking at a cash-only bill. The day was saved by my last five bucks leaping out of my wallet and onto the table, leaving me pleasantly full of parathas but considerably poorer than if I hadn't been treated to dinner in the first place.

It's a day of strange paradoxes. Tomorrow, I predict, will be a bit like Christmas, as Dianna springs from her bed and runs to open her [presents/bank account website]. Will it be toys? Candy? Horrible sweaters from Aunt Marge? I don't know how I'll ever sleep tonight with this suspense.

Posted by dianna at March 29, 2007 08:58 PM
Comments

Dude, that sucks a bunch. On the plus side, I got paid and my funding came through, so I am going to make you eat Ethiopian food with me and not pay for it. What the hell do you think of that?

Posted by: katie at March 30, 2007 06:10 PM

That didn't come out right. What I meant was of course that I want to buy us both Ethiopian food. I don't mean that we will go to a restaurant and eat and then not pay the check at all, because then we would get in trouble and banned from the restaurant for life like my DFH, who is banned from a Mexican restaurant in San Diego and who is also trolling your blog.

Posted by: katie at March 30, 2007 06:13 PM

I like this plan. Not failing to pay and getting banned for life, but eating Ethiopian food and specifically not getting banned. How does that work, anyway? Did someone officially tell him he couldn't come back, or did he beat a hasty retreat out the back door and realize on his own that he could never show his face there again?

And I have a strict* no-lurking policy. If he wants to troll my blog he should come out from under his bridge and comment once in a while, it wouldn't kill him, he never calls, he never writes, he doesn't even care if I get a sick headache, wait, sorry, wrong tirade. Still, sheesh.

*By which I mean vehemently expressed but totally unenforced and almost certainly unenforceable.

Posted by: Dianna at March 30, 2007 09:42 PM

That's why I outed him as a lurker, so he would comment and fill in the whole story of why he was told, personally, by the manager, that he can never go back to that restaurant, and to correct the impression that I deliberately gave that it was for skipping out on his check. And then the lurker-comment barrier would be broken.

Sigh. This was my attempt at social engineering, or psychology or something. It never really works when I do it.

Posted by: katie at March 31, 2007 09:46 AM
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