Topic 48: The Excitement of Having a Bank Account

Carol:

My Life in Plastic

 Lying in bed this morning thinking about Topic #48, I had  another  “duh” revelation: I am a stereotype. Bomb drills and Disneyland in the 50’s,  protest marches and Bob Dylan in the 60’s, job and the Bee Gee’s in the 70’s, parenthood and the Muppets in the 80’s.  I am a card-carrying member of the American Middle-Class, and I have the plastic to prove it. Lots of plastic.

Library cards. I got my first one when I was 10. That paper card became my portal to cheap, exciting adventure and a special kind of freedom. I have two plastic library cards in my wallet.  My British Library card memorializes a frustrating battle with English bureaucracy to gain access to their reading rooms for two hours to read an old  book that sent me immediately into a paroxysm of allergic sneezing and choking. My Prescott library card is less prestigious and more magical, giving me access to all the public, school and college libraries in Yavapai County, more than 40 of them. 

 Driver’s license. I got my first one really late, after I turned 21. Most Americans consider the driver’s license—not the library card— their passage to freedom. Frankly, I never was into the Jack Kerouac “on the road” mythology. Too many little fender benders and years of car-pooling kids divested me of any romantic notions of the automobile as the Great American Dream Machine. My current driver’s license has two things going for it:  It is quite lovely, a colorful stand-out that people in other states comment on when I show my ID, and I still have three years left on a card that was issued in 2000.

Bank card. Mine is hiding behind the health cards, the social security card, and 6 kinds of credit cards, all evidence of my full membership in the middle class and middle age.  I  opened  my first bank account when I was also ten, and it involved standing in a long line with my mother to arrive at a high window to fill out some long papers from somebody official that I had to stretch to see. I didn’t get a bank card, I got a bank BOOK .  I would save enough money to make the official transfer of funds from The Piggy Bank to The Real Bank ,handing my passbook to the bank teller along with the wrinkled dollar bills. I would get back my bank book with another stamped entry, evidence that I was not only increasing my savings but accruing interest. 

My banking habits have changed a lot since I was 10. My savings account is still really small, but I have a big checking account to go with it. And I even own my bank—along with 123,684 other member-owners of our happy, satisfied credit union. I really have accounts at two banks. The Credit Union here in Prescott and that bank back in Westwood, California. When we moved to Canada, the account was never closed. Every once in a while I think about my long lost little passbook. Who knows, with all that interest building up, I just might be a bank owner AND a millionaire.


                  

Megan:

I don't actually have a bank account right now, but I used to. And I have stories.  I could tell you about the time the ATM only gave me half of a 10 pound note and the bank wouldn’t exchange it because it was the "wrong half." Or that when I moved to England, the bank refused to give me an account until I had a place to live. And I couldn’t get a place to live until I had a bank account.  Or the time that my overdraft protection expired mid-month, but I didn’t get paid until the end, so I was overdrawn for 15 days, and getting charged 20 pounds for every day over drawn. I went into the bank to protest the 300 pounds they charged me for being 10 pounds overdrawn, and the lady was so sweet and sympathetic (“Oh honey, I hate it when that happens to me”) that I got too distracted to realize she didn’t help or reduce the fine until later.  Sneaky banker’s trick.

Or how about the first time I ever used an ATM? When I got to college, one of the first things I did was open a checking account. There were representatives from several banks visiting the campus and it was very easy. My brother and I both had a savings account since we were kids because our parents wanted us to learn to be financially responsible (how’d that work out mom?) but this was my very first checking account, with checks and an ATM card. So everything was settled, money deposited and I toddled off to Berkeley to explore and do some shopping.

I stopped at a row of ATMs on University Ave just across from the UC Berkeley campus. There were about 5 of them and there were lines at each one. So I patiently waited in line and then when it was my turn, I stuck my card into the little slot, and that’s when I discovered that I didn’t know my PIN. 

I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, but I experimentally typed in some numbers – my phone number, my zip code, my birthday. Another line had formed behind me, so I gave up and hit cancel but nothing happened. I didn’t know what to do.  Luckily the ATM adjoined a very small branch of the bank (something I later learned isn’t always the case) so I flung open the door and ran up to the counter, staffed by a young and bored looking guy. 

“My card!” I panted, “Is stuck!”
Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around. “Here’s your card.” It was the person who was standing behind me at the ATM. 

“Oh, thanks!” I turned back to the guy at the desk and threw my card down. “Machine's not working, I need money. I don’t know how to do it.”
“What’s your account number?”
“I don’t know!”
“It’s on your card.”
“Oh”
“Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you high or something?”
“No,” I said. “I’m from Arizona.” 

The look of understanding that crossed his face infuriated me, and I had probably the only fit of Arizona pride I would ever have. 

“In Arizona," I continued, “banks have people. And you go up to the people and the people know your name, and your parents’ names and they are nice and they give you your money. They do not ask rude questions or eat bank cards.”

“Are you sure you’re not high?”

Later, after my new PIN arrived, a friend showed me how to use an ATM. And eventually, I lost my preference for customer service over convenience. As far as I know, my parents never use ATMs though and maybe that’s what happens if you don’t leave Arizona (or if you are old).