No Personal Banker For You
“I’d like to close my account,” I told the teller.
She told me I should sit down and wait for a personal banker.
I sat down at waited. Across the vast, empty expanse of the bank, a couple personal bankers were busy helping other customers. And when it got to be 1:30, I got up and walked out.
Second Try
“It’s almost 30 years to the day since I opened this account,” I told our personal banker. She was sitting across a desk from Trudy and me.
She looked at me in disbelief (as in, right…). But then a few moments later, her eyes widened and she said, “August 1982, you’re right.” (Yep, as in, right.) She was merciful in not adding, “That was before I was born,” which would have undoubtedly been true.
I opened that account at University Savings when I first came to Austin to go to grad school. That was back when there were such things as Savings and Loans. But they went away in that financial industry train wreck that we never seem to discuss today. University Savings was absorbed by NCNB, which eventually bought and then became Bank of America. And Bank of America became too big to fail.
And so we’ve wanted to leave that bank for some time. But the convenience of their vast network of ATMs was hard to dismiss while I was traveling for work, and so we hung our heads and dragged our feet.
See The Teller
Well, I’m not traveling anymore, hence my failed attempt Friday and our joint appearance Saturday inside the bank lobby.
My personal banker handed me a sticky note with the balance of our two accounts written on it.
“See the teller,” she said, pointing to the other side of the vast, empty lobby. “He can print out a cashier’s check.” And she said, completely sincerely, to have a good weekend.
The Deed Is Done
No one bothered to ask why we were leaving. No one tried to convince us to stay. None of them really seemed to care.
Frankly, I’m relieved they didn’t ask. I really didn’t want to talk about it, earlier rehearsals in the car notwithstanding.
And now at last, the deed is done, and our heads no longer hang low.