Shower curtains, banks, and other love/hate relationships
February 25th, 2003 by Dusty
I love weekends where you don’t really have anything planned. It gives you time to realize that you are being financially raped by your bank, as a result you are turning into a bit of a Clark Howard/Martha Stewart hybrid, you really love your new shower curtain, you sometimes feel that you have no business as pilot in command of an airplane, and going out early in the evening definitely has its merits. At least that’s what it does for me.
First, the bank. I am going to divulge a bit of embarrassing fiduciary information about myself secure in the knowledge that this has happened to everyone at some point in his or her life. I overdrew my account during the last cycle, and Bank of America, being the sick baby raping nazis that they are, charged me a whole lot of money in fees for this mishap. As if the fact that there is a minus sign in front of my balance means that I have tons of money to spend on overdraft fees. Fucking fuckers. I mean fuckity fuck, for fucks sake. Sorry mom. I had to get that out. Here’s their strategy to anally violate folks with the “free checking” accounts. Stay with me- there is some math here. Let’s say you have $100 in your account, and five checks/debit transactions pending. The checks and debits are in the amounts of $90, $20, $4, $4, $2, $2, and $5. Yes, that adds up to more than $100, and I should keep better track of my spending, but check this out- The transactions all post on the same day, and let’s say they post them from smallest to largest. So I am $27 overdrawn, but only one check (the $90 one) counts as overdraft so I only get one huge ridiculously unnecessary overdraft fee of $30. A total of $57. I’m the idiot who didn’t keep up with his money, and while I think $30 is absolutely insane, the bank has to make money by being predatory. That is marginally acceptable in a kidney stone sort of way, but not fun. What they do in practice (and there are actual lawsuits to prove this, so don’t try to call bullshit on it or I’ll get all lawyery on your ass) is post the largest check first, so they can rack up more overdraft fees. Here’s the result- the $90 check clears, then the $20 (oops, you’re overdrawn, asshat! Here comes the unlubricated fallus, so grab your ankles like a good customer) and you get charged $30 each for the remaining 6 checks, or a total amount of $200 IN ADDITION TO THE $27 YOU ALREADY DON’T HAVE!
But wait…it gets worse!
Bank of America decided that due to my non-sufficient funds thingie that the next check I deposited needed to be held for two business days before crediting the money to my account. That way, they can keep stealing my money in $30 increments for another two days. I wracked my brain trying to figure out in what universe this practice would serve any purpose other than make me violently angry, and could find none. They do this because they know you already have no money, and as long as that is the case, they can keep charging you more money. As of today, I will close my account, and I advise all of you to do the same because I don’t plan on paying any of the fees that I think were unjust, so your fees will eventually go up to pay for vigilante deadbeats like me. Sorry, but that’s just how it is. What they are doing is criminal. What I did was irresponsible, but I would think that having been a customer for almost ten years would hold some weight. Open an account with a small local bank. Go to every Bank of America and crap in their deposit slots. It says “deposit”, doesn’t it?
This led me to becoming more Clark Howard-like in my day to day life. Example- I usually buy bottled water because although the tap water in my building is drinkable by health department standards, the fact that it has the consistency of cookie dough and I have to chew it makes me think that it may be a little too mineral rich for my tastes. I found a machine at the grocery store that charges 25 cents to refill the 1 gallon jugs. Whee! Saving $1.00 per bottle! Then I took it a step further- I got one of those brita filter pitchers, filled it with tap water, and poured it into the gallon plastic jugs. Practically FREE! But it tastes like sawdust and batshit because it was made from cookie dough water, and we all know you can’t polish a turd. So I boil it before filtering it, then filter it, then pour it into jugs, then put it in the fridge, and after about a day’s work and $5 in natural gas to boil the water, I have saved 25 cents. Not a good plan. Keep in mind that much of Clark Howard’s philosophy is based largely on the premise that your time is worth zero money, and that the concept of opportunity cost does not exist. He drives to North Carolina to save 10 cents a gallon on gas.
The money problem is being taken care of. I am being more thrifty and eliminating costs as appropriate. Put away your checkbooks. I appreciate the thought.
I made a point not to spend much money this weekend, and spent lots of time in my apartment working on models and stuff. The little things matter a lot more lately. A few weeks back, the Ladyfriend and I went to buy stuff for my new pad- one of which was a shower curtain liner. I have always been a “sheet of plastic that eventually turns brown and gets thrown away” kind of shower curtain guy, but she convinced me to buy the washable cloth kind. Holy crap. I am in love with it. Sometimes I wrap my naked body in it and prance around the house with gleeful abandon, making squealing noises every time my feet touch the floor…
I was kidding. It does kick some ass, though. The apartment complex management, in their spare no expense style, bought and installed the cheapest shower head possible in my shower. It is a tiny chrome torture device with a spray pattern similar to that of a fire hose. Water can really hurt if it is shot at your sensitive spots with enough force. It feels like you are being sandblasted, and you leave the shower environment feeling like you were attacked by bees. Not regular bees. The African kind that are all mean and shit. A by-product of this high velocity water is an air current that whips the shower curtain around and causes a small-scale typhoon in the bathroom. This is where my cool fabric shower curtain shows its true colors. Where plastic curtains would wrap around you and stick to your wet soapy ass, thereby grossing you out and making you feel like you were just inappropriately groped by a sheet of wet plastic, this one has little suction cups so you can stick it to the tile walls. DUDE. Maybe this idea has been around for years, but I will love and respect this shower curtain liner every day for the service it provides me.
Now, what to do with this beautiful Saturday… OOHHH! I’ll finish taking my stage one and two written exams for my instrument rating! (Test I have to take to prove how little I have learned about flying in bad weather) Woo. Somehow I think I have forgotten more than I have learned about aviation. Okay, I can successfully navigate the aircraft from one point to another and put it safely on the ground, hopefully in such condition that it can be re-used, but I may have done so illegally because I don’t remember whether I am legal to fly at night, and whether I have to make three take offs and landings after Civil twilight or sunset, and just what the difference between civil twilight and sunset is, and if I have to do so with my eyes closed per section 91.978 of the federal aviation regulations for 2003… This is the part of flying I would do without if given the choice.
On Saturday evening, the Ladyfriend and I went out for Early Drinker’s Club with a couple of her friends who are rapidly becoming my friends as well. We’ll call the guy “Hoagie”, because he has the name of a sandwich and I don’t know if he’d want me putting his real name out here for tens of tens of people to read, and her name, we’ll say, is Kelly, because I can’t think of a witty pseudonym. The four of us met for drinks at a local bar at about 6:00 pm and started talking about how nice it was that they didn’t have the music turned up to eleven, and the place wasn’t all full of second hand cancer. Little did we know, we had hit upon an idea that rivals fire, the wheel, and channel lock pliers in its revolutionarynessism. Yes, that is a word. Following are the advantages of leaving extra early for a night on the town-
Let’s say you leave at 6:00 on a Saturday evening to meet some pals at the local watering hole. The first thing you will notice is that there is no traffic. This is because the rest of the idiots are still recovering from having stayed out too late the previous evening, and are just now starting to think about going out. As you pull into the parking lot, you will be pleasantly surprised by the complete absence of Valets who want $5 to move your car 5 feet away and steal the change out of your ashtray. You park right up front and saunter in to find pleasant surprise number 3. They haven’t started charging a cover yet, so you enter for free and choose basically any seat you want. The bartenders/waitresses are bored because the rush hasn’t started yet, so you get instant service with a smile, sometimes pleasant conversation, and/or free drinks.
Kelly and Ladyfriend were sitting there talking and having a good time, and Hoagie and I started pondering (as is want to happen when two supremely powerful minds enter the same space) the merits of an “Early Drinker’s Club”. We soon realized that by the time we had drank and eaten our fill and decided to go home, the nighttime crowd would just be arriving. The four of us could go home and drink more if we were so inclined, see a movie, or go our separate ways. Even if we had spent five hours drinking as hard as we could, we’d still be home before midnight, which translates to a full night’s sleep, further translating to the decreased likelihood of having a hangover and a fully functional Sunday.
As soon as we figure out a way to get our bar tabs paid by the other members of the EDC, we will go forward with a fully structured club that gathers at dusk on Saturday nights. I know how to do it- They’ll all be given an account to spend at the bar. If they go over, I’ll charge them $30 for each purchase, and start charging my drinks to their tab in order that I may get more money. Sounds illegal when I do it, doesn’t it?