Sorry for the inconvenience...
Religist views are on hold today. Today I am completely Bankist.
Fucking banks.
Forgot to pay rent on Friday so I roused my hungover self out of bed and drove down on Saturday morning. My landlord was born before time began, so I can’t pay rent over the ‘net, but instead must physically present myself at a branch of the bank itself.
This particular bank doesn’t open on Saturday—as I found out when I went down there. Fuggit, I’ll go on Monday, I thought, and that’s what I did.
Now previously, I had fronted at the bank weeks ago and foolishly thought I could simply pay rent using EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer Piece Of Shit)—much as you would at any other business in
‘No, sorry we don’t offer that service,’ the teller told.
‘But... You’re a bank?’
‘Yes, but we don’t offer that service. You’ll have to go back outside and withdraw it from the ATM…’
Yes, and pay the non-Communist bank withdrawal fee of $2.50 or $10—whatever it is these days. Oh yeah, then line up again.
But that was all in the past, I was prepared to accept the rort to minimise the inconvenience, just pay rent and get the fuck out of there.
If you are not already shaking your head, you should be…
Today, the entire inner city population was in the same branch of Suncorp. The only park left was a disabled one, so after parking I had to lurch off like I was retarded. The security guard could see I was an angry cripple, so he just let out that deep breath he had taken, then went back to massaging his gut.
I fronted the ATM. ‘Now, I don’t like you and you don’t like me. Just give me my fuckin’ money and we won’t have to deal with each other for two more weeks.’
‘Get fucked,’ said the ATM.
No amount of swearing could convince the machine to accept my card, so I lurched back to my car like an irate Verbal Kent and drove down the road to the Communist Bank. This involved several sets of lights, doing a u-turn around a roundabout, parking the car in a car park and walking back to the bank. I strode up to the single ATM and tried to feed it my card. Nothing happened—even more swearing didn’t help.
A little message was flashing in orange on the screen:
This ATM is temporarily out of service. We apologise for the inconvenience.
I blinked at the machine as the synapses started to stretch and snap in my head.
It’s fucking Monday morning, shit should be working. What do I pay all these stupid fucking bank fees for? The inconvenience?
I glanced in the bank but the que stretched off into the distance. Looking around, I spied a hotel across the road. The gaming room opened at 8.00 (yes, 8am), you can surely bet their ATM would be working.
Yep.
I secured the necessary funds, drove back down the road, parked in The Boonies waited in line for an eternity while people did shit really slowly—I swear I’ve seen dead snails move faster. Then paid rent.
It only took an hour.
