You Can't Necessarily Bank On It

My federal tax refund check arrived in the mail yesterday. I generally get a little something back. I like to take too much out of my paycheck. That way I don't have to worry about having to pay a lot in taxes each April. It works out. I either get a little back or I pay a little. Either way it's always just a little.
A few years back I used my bank's ATM to deposit my refund check. The machine ate the check. It was never seen again and the bank, naturally, had no record of the deposit because the eating happened before the computer had a chance to process my deposit.
Trying to get Bank Of America to credit my account wasn't, apparently, possible. Trying to persuade the federal government to issue me another check got nothing except silence. Perhaps if I had said that my dog ate the check instead of the ATM ate the check I might have at least gotten a nasty letter. What I got, though, was nothing.
Ever since that nasty little incident, I go to a teller inside the bank and deposit the check the old fashioned way.
Off I went today, therefore, to deposit my little refund check.
The line to the tellers was long and I patiently waited my turn.
I explained to the teller that I wanted to deposit a check.
He looked at me with alarm. Another teller rushed to his side.
"Do you know how to use the ATM?" she asked me.
"Excuse me?"
Her question confused me. She spoke louder.
"DO YOU KNOW HOW TO USE THE ATM?" because, of course, volume always makes things more comprehensible.
"Yes," I replied.
"I CAN TEACH YOU TO USE IT!" she shouted.
"I know how to use it. I don't want to use it," was my normal-voiced reply.
"I'LL COME AROUND AND TEACH YOU."
"I know how to use the ATM," said I as the teller prepared to exit the bullet proofed teller area to brave the likes of me.
"I KNOW HOW TO USE THE ATM," I shouted.
I really didn't want her to venture into my world.
"WHAT?"
Her voice had become shrill. I lowered my volume just in case she felt threatened. One doesn't really ever want to cause alarm in a bank. Those guards have guns which they have no idea how to fire.
"I know how to work the ATM," I repeated. "I don't want to use it."
The bank manager appeared next to the two beleaguered tellers.
"I can help you," she said and whipped, I mean whipped, out a deposit slip.
She peered at her computer screen and repeated my name several times. After each repetition I assured her that my name was correct and had not changed since her previous repetition. She seemed to doubt me. She started to fill out a deposit slip. You see, my bank is in Pomona where customers cannot be trusted with deadly devices such as pens and deposit slips. She made some sort of serious mistake on my slip, tore it up, and whipped out another.
Glaring at me she of course asked, "Do you know how to work the ATM?"
She ruined three deposit slips before slapping the fourth into the chest of the teller with whom I had started this travesty.
"How about if I just use the ATM?" I asked him.
"No," he said. "We've already started this."
I guess that's what the Hatfields said to the McCoys or the Grahams to the Tewksburys just after their feuds to the last people began. I imagined my generations and those of the teller finally settling the score on some crowded street.
The teller seemed to have learned nothing from the manager. He destroyed three more deposit slips.
I again offered to use the ATM and from his expression suspected that if I once more made that offer I would be arrested.
Twenty-three minutes after I arrived at the window, the teller -- with glazed eyes and sweat streaked face -- gave me a little piece of paper acknowledging that I had made a deposit to my savings account.
My original intention had been to take a few dollars out of that account for groceries and other normal necessary stuff.
I decided to skip food for awhile. A really long while if withdrawing money from my account involves going again to that teller window.
I'm not even sure the check was actually deposited. Who knows, the bank manager may have taken it in back and eaten it.