The Plateau And The Precipice June 27, 2009

My first post about Vancity described both a of rejuvenation of faith in customer service as well as a wholly naïve disregard for any and all suggestion of eventuality on my part regarding the suspicious link between service and banks. My second post chronicled the decline and welter of common logic, which I keep telling myself exists. This, my third post about Vancity, will continue in furor to thrum along the wet cobbles of inconsistency and describe my latest altercation with the frontline. I can say that I am both miffed and impressed at the variety of ways Vancity consistently finds to inconvenience my life and I have to insist that I do try to write about other things but the subject matter is never as… absurdly entertaining. I will consider your disappointment but I will not apologize. I can’t make this stuff up, and stuff that cannot be made up should be orated and dramatized for the masses.

You are the masses and I am the orator. 

Earlier this month I happened upon a purchase. Actually, I frequently make purchases and hope to continue purchasing things to effectively satisfy my addiction to itunes and to avoid any chances of affluence. Unfortunately this time I was only buying gifts for other people and not albums from the seventies for myself. Actually I was not buying gifts but instead failing to figure out why my card was suddenly declaring itself invalid. I initially defaulted on Vancity perhaps allowing me a Monday Surprise but that was unlikely because Vancity wouldn’t push me over a cliff now after all we’ve been through and I still needed to buy lunch and dinner. I slowly realized that I was nearing terminal velocity endowed upon me by a Monday Surprise and that I had 37 dimes to spend on lunch and dinner because ATM withdrawals and point of sale purchases were no longer a part of my life – which was accelerating towards an endpoint.

It could have been worse. 

But it wasn’t.

It was past branch hours and I wasn’t going to call the customer service number because my hijacked blood pressure was donning on me streaks of intelligence and because 1-800 numbers probably cause cancer anyways. So I fell into a coma and was awoken promptly at eight the next morning by Ted, an accountant representative, apologizing for the delay in notification and suggesting that my card could have been skimmed and that perhaps I’d like a new one because until then my account would be suspended. Perhaps I would then like a new one, I said, acting like this was information I was learning for the first time and that hearing from him at the crack of dawn was a gift from above but really feeling like my insides were rotting gloriously. My card wasn’t skimmed.

I approached a branch one day during my break like one would approach a heap of smelly suspicion and the teller serviced my account robotically and as though the computer was displaying information she had never before seen. She approached the card-stamping machine like I approached the branch, and it took four tries for her to get the machine to stir, which I simply took as an opportunity to program my phalanges with the muscle memory of a new PIN. I was concerned that perhaps after all this, my card was so overwritten with the same information that it wouldn’t work, but a quick test-withdrawl outside suggested I was in the clear. 

And for two weeks this appeared the case until I spent an extra moment realizing that no money had been coming out of my account assigned to my debit card. This registered as odd to me, and I quickly deduced, in horror, that my debit card had been not only been eating at my European Savings Account, but feasting an extra five dollars from it in service charges because of the type of account it was. The robot in charge is a more expensive one, I guess. Simply, for the sixteen transactions I had processed, I was charged $80. I quickly got this fixed at another location by a polite and intelligent teller, without the use of terrorism and using all the energy available to neutralize any imminent rage outbursts or sudden anger comas. 

In my angry letter to Headquarters, I suggested that this whole experience wasn’t as bad as being secretly charged $5 per transaction before reiterating that that was what in fact happened. I hope the effect of my caustic narration describing this torrid affair wasn’t lost, all in all. I hope they send me to Rome in recompense like I suggested. I also hope that unlike Arthur Dent, my trilogies do not come in fours.

Hello Goodbye June 6, 2009

When I’m lonely – which is often, and when I’m on the bus – which is always; I talk to crazy people. I’m glad laws prevent these people from isolating themselves in cars. Generally cars should be made illegal to bring people together and – like in kindergarten – be forced to share and cause a much needed spike in compassion that lasts beyond the age of eight, but imposing car-lessness on the world in the name of peace seems too deep a dive to tread. 

Often and always, and in between bouts of self-pity regarding not being born in the sixties, I find that I have much more in common with children and mentally handicapped people than I do with my peer group. Perhaps I’m angry at people my age because they weren’t born in the sixties either and I’m in denial and maybe because I am arrogant in that respect but the truth is such as I feel. 

On the 17, a man sidled up to me with an ear-to-ear grin and some untended drool, and asked me if I had any experience working with handicapped people. I said that yes, I had, and because one-word answers and disinterest is directed to people of a twentysomething demographic, I explained to him in my teacher voice that I very much enjoyed teaching disabled children and adults at my job. He maintained his discussion grin and inquired as to whether the people I worked with were physically or mentally disabled and then burst with excitement to let me know that he had a mental disability – could I tell? I said that I could hardly tell because I was enjoying the conversation and he was rather more articulate to engage in discussion than a grand majority of the people I acquaint myself with. He giggled like he was opening a birthday gift. “I don’t have enough time to tell you all about my hopes and desires and wishes and dreams because I get off in two stops,” he said, “but I wish I could.” I told him I wish I could listen, but that perhaps he would find someone else on another bus to talk to later on, and he agreed thoughtfully. “Should we know each other by name, or by face?” He asked. I suggested by face, because I am not good at pronouncing the L’s in my name unless I practice out loud a couple of times and because I never before had a friend I only knew by sight, so this concept interested me. “Okay!” He agreed, “We can just be hello and goodbye friends.” He waved as he alighted at Oak. 

So there we were – hello and goodbye friends who knew each other by face. If only people fitting nicely in the middle of bell curves could come up with something like that. Think of the things we could do.

The many hats of Monday, of June, and of the 1st. June 2, 2009

Life is great, and so big! Many interesting things are happening in the close future that I shant elaborate on so that your interest is piqued, and because they are irrelevant to my today-hats.

It’s June. Today I could tell a new month had begun because frantic would be the tip of the description iceberg. 

Since my retirement began, (read… ten-hour work weeks teaching children who are still legally riding in car seats complex physical performance and skill with interludes of information on loose teeth and houses of twelve roofs) I have rarely needed to wake up before 10 am, if at all. The exception is every other weekend when I work at 8 Saturday mornings and 11 Sunday mornings. Let me tell you, this is dumb. I have so much time to myself which is bad news, generally, because my personalities have more inner silence and cerebral inactivity to seize, causing me to question my identity at more frequent intervals than when I worked two jobs and lost the will to eat. I don’t get anything done because my brain DOES NOT STOP. I’ve recently discovered, though, that I can stop my brain with stuff from inside bottles and this helps things like writing assignments, billing, finishing program modules, and other things I generally need to do to get paid. Win, and kaching.

But that is in the past, Cream Soda. The thing about the drug addiction and the eating disorders. I’m dramatizing. I think. Eyes forwards and onwards Cream Soda! 

Mondays I work from three until six thirty, which is nice in June, in an ice rink at the height of the heat of day. Today I woke up early because Agent Michael and I had an undercover breakfast to eat. Since we live in Vancouver (for real, like, it occurs in life…) we bussed to Main and dined in the 60’s before taking a photographical stroll through people’s back laneways. Because lately this amount of activity achieved completely sober would take me about a week and a half, I was spent by the time I actually had to leave for work and the only hat I had donned at this point was Photographer. 

Because of a hyperactive turn signal and the shape of the streets and because Vancouver is to traffic flow like Richmond is not, to cross south at Oak and Nineteenth, one must cross thrice as cars are always passing the south end of the street with general through northbound traffic, then a left turn signal for westbound traffic, and then a right turn signal for oncoming eastbound traffic. I get it, I accept it. It’s just kind of scary and unlike other intersections for a pedestrian. Today, instead of dying I got to drive an Audi TT for a total of 90 seconds. Afterwards, I had already juggled the hats of Survivor, First Responder, Witness, and Valet. I was dangerously racking in the swift accomplishments.

On second step into my journey across the street, I noticed a nice car pull up to the white line, stop, and on my third step a van pulled to a stop behind. It was like the light was red or something – turns out it was – because all cars in all directions had stopped. Except for a tiny white Toyota approaching the throng of stoppage in a fashion unlike that which suggested it would follow suit. I stopped walking at step five because to continue into the path of the collision I saw coming would mean I would probably stop other things like being alive. Seconds later a metallic cacophony rang through the pre-rush hour afternoon in two loud pops. Toyota into Van, Van into Nice Car, Nice Car into Intersection. Pedestrian alive. Meanwhile, lights are changing, so I ran to the passenger window of Nice Car In The Intersection – this is a slick Audi TT – to Scene Survey. Luckily, this happened a stone’s throw from VGH so doctors erupted from the shadows like fish from a disrupted reef and I let them administer aid in ways less questionable than I could.

Time sped up a little, and traffic stopped and ambulances surrounded, but the little Audi was in the intersection blocking through traffic and emergency vehicles and after the paramedics took the driver to the side, one asked if I would move the car to the side of the street. Could I? Sure. I slid into the leather racing bucket, the door shut with a new car whomp, and I stirred the wheel and kneaded the pedal down the street to the VGH parking lot.

Or, that is what I think happened. I remember stopping in the crosswalk and then my memory picks up as I handed the car keys to a paramedic. I remember the sun angle on the surrounding apartments as I waited to cross the street, I remember the vaguely uncomfortable stagnant heat of the summer city, and I can distinctly smell the road melting under the sun. I don’t remember any details of driving a car the cost of most houses that can turn more heads than a movie star. For a story, this sounds odd because the weight of the experience doesn’t correlate with popular values but what isn’t odd is the delicacy of life and how a moment can impress itself when the energy needed to stay alive pumps through your veins just as a moment can be forgotten while the energy hopes that the lives of others stay safe. 

Then I went to work. Teacher Hat, Mom Hat, Nurse Hat. Always know where your hats are. 

Life is great, and so, so delicate and small.