Or: How I came to be locked in a room with four dead credit cards, a shivering bank manager, a supercilious Sandra Sullyesque bitchcow, a terror inducing telephone and a lot of shouting. I get paid monthly, which means I have one fabulous week each month, and then I live off my credit card for the next three weeks. Which is fine, as long as the bill gets paid (which it does) and the bank doesn’t decide to fuck me over, just for fun (which they did).
A few weeks ago I stopped on my way home from work to put petrol in the car. When I went in to try to pay for it the poor schleb behind the counter fumbled with the machine for a few minutes and then told me, in tearful tones, that my credit card wasn’t working, but that it wasn’t my fault, a whole stack of credit cards, from what I will call the Bank of Arsehats, had been failing over the last few days, and could I please not shout at him about it because he’d already had too much shouting about the Bank of Arsehats and he himself was not an Arsehat and why do people have to be so mean about everything???
I’m not completely hard hearted, so I nodded sympathetically, left him my drivers license number and took my shouting off to the local Bank of Arsehats branch. Which, of course, had just recently closed.
So I rang their customer disservice line, waited on hold for three weeks and finally got put through to the wrong person who didn’t know what I was talking about, couldn’t help me even if she did and disconnected me when she tried to put me through to someone else who wouldn’t have been able to help me either.
So I counted to 50, poured another drink and called the customer disservice line again. Repeat above procedure a few times until I finally got through to one of the Arsehat monkeys in Sydney, who delightedly informed me that the Bank of Arsehats had very responsibly cancelled a whole batch of credit cards because they thought the card numbers may have been compromised and wasn’t that splendidly pro-active of them?
“Indeed, yes” I said admiringly, “and thank you for protecting my available credit from Nigerian porn merchants, but perhaps it might have gone better if you’d told me that you were cancelling my card?”
“Oh yes”, said the Arsehat monkey, “we know that, and we’re going to send you a letter next month to tell you all about it.”
“Excellent, that’s terrifically helpful, are you also perhaps going to send me another card?” I asked.
“Oh yes, that should reach you within 14 business days” the monkey said proudly.
“Ah. Even more helpful. How exactly am I supposed to access my available credit in the meantime?”
“Oh, well, you can’t …..is that likely to be a problem?”
The monkey seemed a little surprised when I said very firmly that it would indeed be a problem, but he agreed that they could probably get one sent out to me “tomorrow”, if they really had to. I suggested that they really really had to – a lot – and he obligingly agreed to send it to me “today”.
Fast forward two weeks, to the arrival of my new card, and me, racing down to pay the poor schleb from the petrol station who’d been having such Arsehat-induced trauma of late. He scanned the card, pushed a few buttons, waited a couple of minutes and then handed it back to me.
“Your card doesn’t work” he said, and gazed tearfully out the window.
I briefly considered joining him in tearful gazing, but then I remembered that I am made of much sterner stuff and went home to plot my next move. When I got home I found not one, but TWO Bank of Arsehats credit cards waiting for me in the mail box. I looked dubiously at them for a bit then called the petrol station schleb and gave him both the new credit numbers.
“They don’t work either” he told me tremulously. I made a few soothing noises at him, then I flung myself into the car, drove across 15 suburbs to my local Bank of Arsehats branch and pounded in, demanding at the top of my voice to see the manager “now godamit, NOW”.
The tellers all stared at me with rabbit-in-the-headlights terror in their eyes and then looked appealingly at the bank receptionist bitchcow sitting in the corner, wearing a cheap suit and a supercilious expression.
She teetered over in her stupidly high heels to look disapprovingly at my hair, and told me, in Sandra Sullyesque tones, that the manager was extremely busy and would not be able to see me just now.
“That’s fine” I said menacingly, “I’ll WAIT”, and I sat down, muttering a devout prayer that she would wake up the next day with a screaming case of anal warts.
After giving me a few more disapproving stares, she teetered back to her desk and started smugly tapping at her keyboard.
Figuring I was in for a long wait, I decided to call beloved husband for some sympathy and commiseration. I dialled his number and listened to ringing, ringing, ringing and then…
“Fuckbiscuits!!!” screamed beloved husband’s voice.
“Umm...oh” I said intelligently.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuckingcuntybollocks”
“Is something wrong,” I asked politely
“Don’t be a fucking smartarse, yes something is fucking wrong. I can’t find my donkeyrooting glasses.”
“Ah” I said. “Been looking for them for long?”
“Yes, I’ve crawling around on this arselicking floor for half a fucking hour”
“On the floor?” I asked, surprised. “Why the floor? Did you drop them?”
“No I didn’t fucking drop them” he yelled to the accompaniment of loud crashing noises
“Oh…well, what happened to them then?”
“I was …..fuck….I was fucking dancing alright”
“You were…dancing???”
“Yes” in sulky tones
“I see…..and you dropped them after a particularly vigorous jeté battu?”
“Fuck off”
“Sorry, my bad... not ballet at all, but… perhaps some air-guitar and even a little banging of the head going on there?”
“Yes dammit and it’s not fucking funny! My glasses flew off my head and I can’t fucking see my glasses when I’m not fucking wearing my glasses. Now I’m crawling around the floor with a torch trying to find the little fuckers and… christallfuckingmighty woman, stop fucking laughing at me.”
“Darling, I’m hurt, how could you imagine that I would ever make a joke of such a predicament? But perhaps I should let you go and look for them?
“NO, for fuck’s sake don’t hang up, I can’t see to dial the fucking phone, if I can’t find them you’ll have to come home and help me look. Butt-reaming, cock-slobbering little motherfuckers, where are you?”
I looked over at the smugly typing bitchcow, smiled beatifically at her, and put beloved husband on speaker phone.
“Fuck-featured turd-munching arse-monkeys” roared beloved husband’s voice out of my high powered iphone. “Cock-pickles! Dirty, filthy, piss-swilling whores.”
The bitchcow came hurrying over to me, a horrified look on her face.
“I’m sorry” she said, “You can’t have the radio on in here”
“Oh no” I said, “it’s not the radio, it’s my husband”.
She looked even more horrified.
“You creaming little poofters, where the fuck did you go {more loud crashing noises} I’m going to smash every fucktarding thing in this fucking room until I find you then I’m going to KILL you, you fuckingcheesedicked festering dogfingerers.”
Bitchcow looked as if she was about to faint.
“Yes” I said thoughtfully, “he’s not very well. Perhaps I should ask him to come down and wait here with me?”
Bitchcow stuttered at me for a couple of seconds, then ran back to disappear into the managers office.
“Arse-packers! Shitwads! Bumble-fucking cocknuts!” beloved husband’s voice echoed around the bank, as I turned the volume up even louder.
Ten seconds later the manager popped out of his office like he’d been shot out of a cannon.
“Butt nuggets! Fucking knobwrenches! Shit-licking dick-biscuits! There they are!! How in the name of holy fuck did my fucking glasses get under the scrotum-sucking oven” shrieked beloved husband’s voice.
The manager, also looking like he was about to faint, came belting across the room.
“Ok honey, glad it all worked out for you, bye now” I said, hung up the phone and stood up to greet the terrified manager of my local Bank of Arsehats branch.
“Terribly sorry about all that, it’s so sad when it happens to someone in their prime isn’t it?” I reached out and shook his limp hand. “Now, shall we chat here or would you prefer that we go back to your office?” I patted my phone lovingly.
“Oh, ah, yes, umm, I guess, um, I’m not sure…” he said, eyeing my phone nervously. Bitchcow ran up behind him and whispered something in his ear. The only words I caught were “…husband…. coming here…” before the two of them grabbed my arms and raced me back to the manager’s office, which had a lock on the door.
And that is how I ended up locked in a room with four dead credit cards, a shivering bank manager, a supercilious Sandra Sullyesque bitchcow, a terror inducing telephone and a lot of shouting.
For anyone who is interested, apparently the reason my new card didn’t work is because they had coded the wrong expiry date into all the new cards printed in the first three weeks of July. When the Bank of Arsehat card makers realised their mistake they panicked, pushed the wrong button and reprinted all the non-functioning cards. Twice.
Yep, almost as infuriating as the Vista operating system on my laptop. But that’s a story for another time.
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