So we crossed off lunch in Lenox and I threw Peg in the car and headed instead up to Williamstown to see another friend of hers, Louise, who runs a Japanese-style B & B (Berkshires-shirakaba.com) at $375 a night. Lovely, but the path to the house is all gravel and rustic uneven flagstones, perfect for Peg and her walker, then some steps, then a million more steps. We didn't stay long. Peg kept obsessing about guests having to eat cross-legged on the floor. [TORY, SUBARU OWNER, DON'T READ THIS NEXT PART]: Trying to get as near to the steps as possible with the car so Peg didn't have to walk so far, I came this close, I swear, to backing lickety split into a stone wall with a Buddha on it, in my borrowed Subaru. One eighth of an inch to spare, seriously. Buddha loves me.
Next stop: Berkshire Bank ("America's Most Exciting Bank"), Allendale Branch, to get HH Savings Bonds which have matured and are now ready to send to the Treasury Department, which for some reason is in Minneapolis, not DC--signed, for redemption. And to do this--I am an old hand by now--you need to go to your branch's manager and she witnesses your signature and stamps the claims form with a special bank certificate stamp and you go home and mail it all to Minnesota. I have done this at least a dozen times in the past five years. So today I had a bunch to send, in my name, and Peg had a bunch in hers. They all normally reside, quietly maturing, in the Safety Deposit Box and when I get a letter saying one or more are ready (twenty years after they were puchased), I go get them. As I did last week. And yesterday took an hour or so to fill out the forms. And all that remained was to get them officially stamped. And as I had Peg out and about, the Bank was on the list.
At Allendale, however, it turns out that Tricia is no longer bank manager, she is now running the Great Barrington branch (far). No one had as yet been hired to replace her and Denise, sadly, being only an Assistant Manager, and in fact from North Adams branch and only there for the day, had no authority or indeed an official stamp. She rang the Elm Street branch. Diane, the manager, was out to lunch but would be there after two, with her stamp.
Peg and I killed time with small cheeseburgers and fries at Five Guys next to Stop and Shop.
The Elm Street branch of Berkshire Bank ("America's Most Exciting Bank"), was heaving. Four people sat in the chairs where you wait to see a bank officer. We waited. We waited some more. Through the glass walls, I could see Diane the bank manager in deep conversation with someone she'd hugged as he'd walked in. Was she setting up mortgage or a date? We waited thirty minutes. Peg nodded off. I asked an Assistant Manager if he could help. No, he was an assistant, he explained, and had no stamp. I got Peg up and out and back down the ramp with] her walker and into the car and off we went to the Williams Street branch, Berkshire Bank getting, I'm afraid to say, less exciting by the second.
At the Williams Street branch I left Peg in the car and went in, where I was the only customer. They looked happy to see me. I asked why Berkshire Bank was America's most exciting bank. They smiled but couldn't answer. I asked if there was a bank manager with a stamp there by any chance, and a short, stout, dour, older woman with short hair breezed by and said she was a manager and yes she had a stamp but I would have to wait while she attended to an important wire transaction. I went out to the car and woke Peg, got her out and wheeled in. We waited. I picked up Real Simple magazine. Peg, "The Little Match Girl", a children's book. Eventually we were ushered into an office.
The manager, named Margaret, called Peg "Margaret" and appeared to know her and the signing of Peg's HH bonds went smoothly. Margaret Manager then asked me for an ID. I gave her my Massachusetts license, my UK license, and my Berkshire Bank ("America's Most Exciting Bank") debit card. She queried why on the bonds, my name was one thing but the funds were to go into an account with another name. I said it was my married name, that the Treasury Depot and I were old friends, they knew who I was, I had been doing this for years. She asked if I had documentation showing I had changed my name. I said no, I didn't have my marriage license with me. She refused to stamp my form. She told me my mother's verification of my identity was no good.
She also told me it would cost $10 each to stamp the form. I told her I had never in my life paid for a stamp over at Allendale, I had been a customer at Berkshire Bank ("America's Most Irritating Bank"), since 1970, my parents since 1951, and--and--and that my father had just passed away and, fuck me. The tears just poured out. I couldn't stop.
They cut no ice, however, with Margaret the Bank Manager. I grabbed my stuff, and Peg, and in doing so my wallet dropped and out fell the business card belonging to Tricia, former manager of the Allendale branch but now at Great Barrington. (Why would she move without telling me???)
"Here!" I slapped the card on Margaret's desk. "Call Tricia! OK?? She knows me! She'll verify who I am! That I am not some some stupid imposter from fuck knows Indiana trying to steal bonds! Christ!" (I didn't really say "fuck knows". I don't think. Wait. Maybe I did.)
So Margaret called Tricia but she only got as far as "I have a Margaret Ronning here with some HH bonds and a woman who says she's her---" before Tricia The Intelligent set her straight.
And that was that. I got stamped. And got in the car and was halfway across Washington Mountain before I remembered (no, not Peg, put her in first) that I hadn't paid the stupid $20 for the stupid stamps.
Then again couldn't stop, tears crept down my face all the way home. You just try to do stuff, you know? And cross it off the list, even though the list gets bigger overnight and when no one's looking and I will never get to the end of it, never--and I want, I just want, expect, people to do their jobs and do them competently. That's all. That is not setting my sights high.
Then, then, we get home and there's a package in the post, a "book", and I use the term loosely, it's a (badly) typewritten manuscript from a Mel Simon, so-called fan of Peg's, asking her to write the "foreword" (sic) for this, his third book (think booklet) on Old Time Radio Trivia--in which, curiously, she or her show is not mentioned, thank you, nor was she in his earlier two books. He also says that in case she doesn't "know what to write" (when has Peg never known what to write, she's a fucking writer) he has included a "foreward" already written by his friend Shelly Strickler which he can put in, in Peg's name.
What a complete utter waste-of-time wanker is this guy, and I in fact formed that conclusion when I had occasion to speak to him on another matter regarding Peg a few years ago. Anyhow I wrote to him on her behalf, with her permission. You can imagine the content.
The good news though is,= Peg wore underpants today. It seems she has been going without since her return here in May.
No comments:
Post a Comment