Imagine my surprise, as someone who has never bounced a check, to get a call from my dentist’s office after my squeaky-clean checkup and hear that there was a problem with my payment.
…and then realize my bank sold my health savings account to another bank and duh, I should have paid with my new debit card because of course my old checks don’t work anymore. (Who even pays with checks anymore, you may wonder? I was trying to save them the credit card processing fee. Good job, me.)
It being the Midwest, the office manager and I both apologized profusely to one another and now I’m thoroughly embarrassed. But it did get me to thinking how some of my characters would handle the situation of bouncing a check.
Crash (PsyCop) You actually wrote a check? Well, see, that’s your problem right there. Not the check—I’m not ageist or anything. But trusting The Man (i.e. the bank) to handle your money is the real issue. If you take the time to look around and put the word out, you can find people willing to work on the barter system. Even a dentist. Mine looks smoking hot in her balayage, if I do say so myself. Total win-win.
Jacob (PsyCop) Obviously, this is a cash flow situation. I have enough money to cover my expenses. If you’d look at the number of years I’ve been banking here without any problems—things got busy at work and…fine. Just charge me the fee and we’ll forget this ever happened.
Dixon (The ABCs of Spellcraft) I did have a checking account once—Dad says they used to give away toasters when you opened up a bank account, can you imagine that? No one offered me a toaster, though they let me keep the pen. Which is fine, I suppose, for people who like writing with a ballpoint pen. I always find ballpoints a bit chintzy compared to a nice fountain pen. Though the gel pens with the glittery ink can look pretty spiffy on the right cardstock…say, what were we talking about, again?
Yuri (The ABCs of Spellcraft) I fail to see the purpose of putting your money in a bank and then paying someone with a check when you could simply hand them the cash instead. Americans overcomplicate everything.
Vic (PsyCop) In my defense, if it weren’t for the charges I got slapped with for going below some arbitrary “minimum balance,” I never would’ve overdrawn.
Now I suppose this is going on my permanent record.
Sigh.
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