I have not been to the bank in weeks. Not since the day I tried to close out my fixed deposit account. The receptionist asked me why - I said bad customer service - it was the first thing that came to mind. She told me I had to wait until the account matures at end of the month - some memo she had gotten recently from the people "behind the tinted glass". I bet the memo was sent yesterday. I was not in the mood to argue and I left my weapon of choice at home. She then proceded to notify me that there is a hundred thousand dollar limit on withdrawals. She even had the nerve to suggest that if I really wanted the money now I could take out a loan at 11% - A FREAKING LOAN FOR MY OWN MONEY!!
She was unmarried. I should have flirted with her but I was not there for that. I was concentrating on something else. I get like that from time to time - well very often - focused like a robot. I had no choice I just left. When I was twelve I went to new york and I fell in love with this girl I met in church that summer. The kind of love that you only dream about when your 12 and before you were influenced by the likes of america cable television and girls gone wild. She had hair extensions. I have always wondered if I thought she was cute because of the extensions and if so am I really that shallow. Would I have hated her otherwise? Now I just avoid women with hair extensions, monkeys and STDs.
Sometimes the world is all flat and you realized that you have done nothing all weekend. I have a test or two this week and I have only made it through three or four pages of five or six weeks of school. In the last seven or eight days of study I have done nothing at all but sleep and eat cornbread. Oh sweet cornbread. I used to grow corn when I lived in the country. Its quite easy to grow, not as fickle as other produce and is pretty much hurricane resistant.
2 weeks ago my father died. I have never been to a funeral before. He was recovering from a stroke he had the week before. When all is said and done the funeral was over and it rained. We sang some songs, read passages from the bible and the pastor preached his sermon. The finality of the whole ordeal was quite saddening. My nephew cried and I mostly just watched the rain. I hang around in Mandeville for a while and met some cousins. As the eulogy was read I wondered how life could be compressed into a few minutes of text. I don't know how to feel. Your only alive for so long, so make as many friends as possible. I have always been a bit emotionally distant. Now I'm just hanging around but I'm OK.
At one point or the other, you look up from watching your shadow on the sidewalk. Its late at night, not too late, or dancehall party late but late enough that you could get killed by a crazed monkey that had escaped from a local zoo. But it is late, dark and you are obviously high off something because you are watching your shadow on the sidewalk for no reason but its entertaining. And then you lookup realise that there are far too many police park along the road up ahead. Far too many. More than the usual zero or more than that of none. At this point you begin to question whether your in the right place or what you had for breakfast this morning. Whether you are wearing the bullet proof vest your mother bought you for christmas or is your new cellphone bulging out of your waist like a 457 magnum.
Obviously you stopped wearing the bullet proof vest because it was obviously cheap and it never really went well with any of the clothes in your closet. Not to mention the fact that none of your friends would not hang out with you because they thought you were crazy and people looked at you funny. Especially when you walked around with one hand in your pocket and another hand holding up a peace sign. No, you definitely did not have your bullet proof vest on. So you make a sigh of relief while still trying not to appear too suspicious as you walk by the raiding party of conspicuously dressed polices offices with high powered weapons, full riot gear and extra weapons strapped to their legs. You keep hearing vivid clicking sounds coming from the weapons, as if you were in a movie, a bad movie that ends badly, a movie that your girlfriend didn't want to see because it was too violent. A movie where you could not afford the pop corn at the concession stand so you brought mackerel sandwiches.
You have not been to the bank in over two weeks. If you had done anything wrong you probably would not have made it out alive and would not be walking down this street, now, alone, watching your shadow, late at night. Obviously you have no card with-which to withdraw. Plus you have no money. So why where you at the bank in the first place when you have no card and no money? And if everything is not already confusing why are you walking do this street? Your cellphone starts to ring, but you ignore it fearing that if you reach down too quick take it out, it might seem like your reaching for you cellphone - which is true, but your the only one who knows that. So you keep walking until your a safe distance away.
Standing in the line, I thought. Having easy access to my money is like an apple in the garden. Credit cards are evil. I think automated teller machines have something against me, I really don't know why they keep eating my card. So in order to keep myself in cheque I always join the line in the bank - the tellers are more predictable, like airline hostesses. I can also work on my mental map of the bank layout and the comings and goings of armed couriers. The machine quickly and carefully will eat my access card without even a shred of warning, beeping and looking at me funny too. It must have sensed my urgency - need to withdraw. I spend most of my time playing around with computers but yet have I witnessed a [em]spawn of satan so wretched[/em]. If it were not for the fact that it was embedded into the wall I would tip it over and hit it with a garbage bin until it gave me what I was due. Getting that card back from customer services is a pain, I still haven't been back for it since it was abducted 10 months ago.
Women that work in banks are a specific breed. You might think that they are born bad-tempered or aggressively assertive, But in fact it is a process that develops over a undefined period of co-existing with each other in a confined space with tinted glass, millions of dollars in cash and coin. If you spend enough time in a maze like line made out of dividers as I have, you begin to understand why they are the way are when you meet them outside of their natural environment. They often start out as interns or slaves. Then as they earn enough money to buy make-up, they move up in the rankings. Some will quickly gain power while others will forever be asking their supervisor to verify my signature. I pray that I don't get the new girl. You can tell when a teller is new especially when they look at you as if your trying to pass off a fake US dollar cheque then I'm like "yeah, OK, I'll wait". I should have shaved, this morning.
The non-tellers in the background behind the glass walking around counting money or bringing sheets of paper from one side of the building to the other, as if they are building some sort of fire - somewhere - secretly. On some fridays they have a jeans and t-shirt day but it really does nothing for the under paid interns who can't afford makeup. The interns will eventually step up though, get sharper clothes and designer glasses which they can use to make themselves look older and more professional on the job but in fact they are nothing but crumbs on the table. The real movers and shakers are behind the tinted glass up stairs and they will fire an intern the second he or she loses a dollar. At the end of the day everything is checked, balanced, weighted and tallied if everybody follows protocol it goes smoothly and they live to take your money another day.
Chatting to people, especially women online is one of the most counter productive things one can possibly do. I have people on my list that I haven't spoken to in years. Either because they know me or somebody I know in some sorta weird love triangle, square or pentagon. Not to mention the single women, who if you talk to as much in real life, would not be quite so single. The worst comes forth when you start getting stalked by women in foreign countries. You know you can't find women like that in your country so chatting with them is pointless. Its sorta like watching porn. I block them. It not like you can hop over to their house and hit it - so there is no point. Usually I don't even chat with anybody unless I see them on the street or they call me. I haven't gotten a sensible email in weeks. In fact I really don't have anything to talk about anymore. Last week I said good morning to chick on MSN and she said my good morning was "dry". I blocked her - again.
I need to get out more, I said it before. I need a car so bad. I am too good at this internet thing. If you never see me come back online its because I've blocked you - send me an email. Last week I was sitting on the bus beside a girl that I thought I recognized from HI5. 10303181. I could not really remember the exact details, so I had on that "blank" look that I get when I'm doing a deep crawl - in my brain. Plus she was sitting in a unusually weird posture, but anyway she noticed and asked "do you know me from somewhere?" and I said "No, Do I?" (because I totally forget people, really). It was like 9:30 PM and she said "you sat next to me on the bus 2 days ago, with your white headphones". And I said "did I say anything?". And she was like "No". I was like "OK". Not knowing what to say I just kinda nodded for the rest of the conversation. I was close to my stop so I told her that the next time she saw me, she should get my number and email address. My memory of the whole thing is vague. I even forgot to ask her name but names means nothing to me anyway. I wonder if she has any skills.
I have some of the strangest relationships with people. Some people think I hate them but in fact I am just aloof and lacking of drama. Women love drama that is why you know nothing about me. Its not that I'm busy, I just have nothing to say. Either that or I am so focused on what I'm doing that I do not notice that your trying to get my attention. If you see me online and I keep talking about the same thing its because I am multi-tasking or working on something. Because if i try to change the topic while I'm using my brain I'm going to say something stupid - and stupid is as stupid does. Its really hard to constantly come up with new interesting stuff to talk about when the person on the other end are like a vacuum. Free love come and take me.