October 20, 2004
I'm awake now!
So, this morning I went into the bank to do some routine housekeeping on my accounts and was startled out of my first-thing-in-the-morning-semi-slumber when the nice young man at reception said 'Are you SURE you have an account at this branch?".
A little-bit-more-awake, I assured him that not only was I sure but actually I have TWO accounts here with QUITE a bit of money in them thank you very much. Friendly but firm. Still calm. Despite this the nice-young-man-at-reception wasn't able to find any trace of my accounts and now WIDE AWAKE I was ushered to a desk to consult a consultant.
Happily, consultant found a record of my accounts. Unhappily, they had several 0's, in every column, on the WRONG side of the comma. (They use a comma in Holland, not a full stop, dus, think $0,00)
It was at this point that I started sputtering and godverdommering about my two accounts with a SIGNIFICANT amount of money in them. (Think, more-money-than-I've-ever-had-in-my-life, think, house-deposit, think, panic!)
Turns out some precipient bank employee has closed my accounts and moved them to a branch in a city in which it has not YET ever occurred to me to live.
At this news I went all FOREIGN on the poor woman and started asking the sort of questions that only foreigners ask,.... like WHY? Why had someone closed my accounts and moved them to another city? This bought out the latent Dutchness in my consultant who looked at me aksance, mentally checked if she could remember where the security button was and asked me why, WHY had someone closed my accounts and moved them to another city?
We spent about 30 seconds locked into our micro-trans-global-dispute, she with an "Only-a-foreigner-would-allow-this-to-happen-to-their-money" look on her face and me with a complimentary "Only-a-Dutch-bank-would-do-this-to-my-money" expression on mine before we decided on a truce. She would arrange for my accounts to be moved back to the branch from whence they came and I would return in a couple of days and sign a lot of bits of paper.
By the time I emerged from the bank onto van Baerlestraat I was desperately in need of a martini. As it was only 10.00am I settled instead for the Aftsap and a wool splurge. Ron has decided that what he wants more than anything in life at the moment is for me to knit him a scarf with lots of Rowan's Big Wool and some 8mm bamboo needles.
I'll tell him about his decision when I get home.
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