The stillness of remembering what you had

by anna at 09:20 AM on January 10, 2004

I’ve absolutely no regard for my own safety or well-being. I still smoke a little and drink like a fish and then I smoke more. From age 13 to 30 I did every drug known to man. I didn’t “stop” for health reasons but only because it started to make me feel all paranoid and isolated. I don’t wear a seat belt. Although of pale Nordic descent, I eschew sun screen. I haven’t a clue what my cholesterol count is. I tune out whenever those discussions of “grams of fat” ensue. How much could a gram amount to unless it’s coke?

I made no New Year’s resolutions. I exercise but only in the context of competitive sports like tennis and soccer. I play on a team despite the fact that it’s not a sport suited to brittle old men such as myself. I’ve torn my quadriceps, fractured my patella and developed a dependence on painkillers as a result of all my soccer injuries. (Eventually the doctor slapped the drug-seeking behavior label on me and that was that.) It’s my dream to water and snow ski in a single day. My will specifies that my body should be hurled into a ditch from a moving vehicle. I think grand mal seizures are fun.

This reckless bent spills over into the way I conduct my home life too. Confession: I haven’t balanced my checkbook in ten years. We routinely deposit all our money into a checking account. Every month a statement comes and we glance at it as you might a cooking show. Mainly we look at whether income exceeded outgo or vice versa. Usually it’s about equal but no worries, since I get a bonus every February. It’s only a few thousand dollars, but it provides a cushion so we don’t need to fret about an unexpected expenditure (orthodontia, yikes!) breaking the bank. Plus, we’ve got overdraft protection at the mom ’n pop bank I’ve dealt with for 30 years.

But now it’s been taken over by one of those huge banking conglomerates. When I mentioned it to meticulous, checkbook-balancing, coupon-clipping, 401k, price check people, they warned me to keep a close eye on my statements because they’re prone to mistakes over in Indonesia or wherever these things are keyed in. I figured it probably all evens out in the end. And besides, after all those years of ignoring my finances, there’s no way I could begin to reconcile it all.

Enter me, Christmas shopping tipsy and in the holiday spirit big-time. I’m scrawling checks like there’s no tomorrow: An antique 78 record player/CD player for my mom finished in a handsome mahogany, consider it done. Snap. Faux fur and fine perfume for the wife, check. Snap. A snazzy computer and desk for my son, it’s all good. I silenced the tech salesman with all his talk of memory, megahertz of ROM and CD-burning features with a curt, “I’ll take it.” New Year’s Eve we enjoyed the traditional surf ‘n turf ‘n champagne by the magnum. If we’d had any firewood we’d have thrown our fancy flutes into the fireplace. We won and lost $1,000 gambling online. Hoo-fa! Ring in 2004, a banner year.

Or not. Nancy makes a rare appearance at this bank to cash her monthly stipend from her dad. The teller is like, ma’am you’re $950 overdrawn. We can’t cash your check. Hell, you’re lucky we don’t sell you into prostitution. She is mortified by reality’s rude intrusion into our insular dream world. Talk about a post-holiday downer.
So I go to the bank to investigate this fiasco. Mohammed pulls up the month of December. It’s three pages and I’m getting this awful sinking feeling like Ron Jeremy pushing your face into an ottoman. I recall that I’d left my paycheck on my nightstand. It’s for $1,700, for all the good it does us now. Turns out the goddamn reason we’re so far in the hole is that with this overdraft protection they cover your check alright---and then whack you with a $30 charge---per check. So far there’ve been twelve of those. More are coming but we have no clue how many as we never record our checks. You do the math. We are so fucked. And we have nowhere to turn for funds. There are no markers to call in. I just learned that there’ll be no February bonus this year. Sperm bank here I come.

Though it didn’t exactly inspire confidence in my new bank’s veracity when I asked Mohammed to show me November. He clicks “previous month.” The screen shows nothing. He says, “You had no transaction in November month.” I tell him that’s impossible as this is my only account. He is adamant. The computer doesn’t lie. Oh well, it all evens out in the end. Doesn't it?