Living for Disco

The woman in the queue behind me has absolutely no concept of personal space. Every time I shift forward to get away from her, she shuffles towards me, nudging my heels with the toes of her shoes, and all but resting her chin on my shoulder. I’m shocked at how distressing I find it. I look desperately around at the counters, two of which are manned, but empty of customers. I move towards one but the woman holds up her hand imperiously, and I am forced to move back to the front of the queue. Finally, when there is no space left for me to shuffle into, I am called up.

“Hello, I’d like to make a deposit into a bank account please.”

He takes the slip and the cheque, and makes random biro marks on the paper. He purses his lips, and types something random into the computer. I know it’s random, because his hands look like someone who’s pretending to be a virtuoso piano player.

“Would you like me to make this money available immediately?”

I’m confused, although something tells me that this should not be a difficult question.

“What do you mean?” I imagine the money sitting in the bank, behind lock and key, for an undisclosed length of time. “Doesn’t it automatically become available when the cheque clears? If I say no, how long will it take?”

“Seven to twenty working days.”

This seems like an inordinate length of time to wait for a cheque to clear, particularly as it’s written from the same bank.

“Do you want to be able to get at the money now?” he asks, with some impatience.

“I don’t know,” I say pathetically, all my decision making powers vanishing in a puff of bewilderment. “It’s not my bank account.” Then a thought occurs to me that can aid me in this troublesome decision.

“Does it cost extra to have it made available immediately?” This isn’t an unreasonable question. The banks charge you for breathing here. They charge you for putting money in, for taking it out, for leaving it there, for moving it around, for using an ATM, for requesting a statement, anything. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t opened a bank account yet. I keep my money in a safe place in my flat. Under the mattress. My mattress doesn’t practice extortion, or provide me with bank statements that are likely to make me homicidal, and then charge me for them.

He ignores my question, and begins sucking his teeth. Then he laughs. “I could normally make the money available immediately because the cheque is from this bank, but actually in this case I can’t.” He laughs again, inexplicably.

“Why can’t you?”

He looks shocked. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”

There’s a short pause, while his wildly flailing hands input more random into the computer system. Then he turns to me and pushes a confirmation slip across the counter.

“You can access the money immediately.”

I resist the temptation to repeat that it’s not my money. “I thought you said you couldn’t do that?”

“Well I did.”

“Did it cost any extra?” I ask, as I tuck the slip into my purse, but he’s already looking past me. “Next!” I am elbowed out of the way by a large woman wielding a leather shopping bag the size of a large springbok.

I leave, feeling slightly confused. For some reason, I am tempted to open an account right now. I can’t explain it, even to myself.

Positive Mental Attitude. Dontcha just love acronyms? My last job was so full of acronyms that you couldn’t have a conversation without sounding like a hyperactive corporate executive on a mission to confuse. ‘Clare, who are the VFs on the next FEH trip? We need someone who can do ICCE and ECCE, and probably some BS aswell’ . It used to take people weeks to get to grips with the goings on in a normal team meeting. This is a world where VIP stands for Visually Impaired Person. That one had me flummoxed for months.

It’s the same here. We have the RACOC, the CACOC, RACE, MoSSH, MIB, NGO, CBO, NACOP, NANASO, AAC, etc. etc. It still doesn’t seem right to be referring to actual people as OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) or PLWHAs (People Living With HIV and AIDS). Talk about depersonalising everything.

As you might be able to tell, at the moment, as far as I’m concerned, PMA stands for Pre Menstrual Anger. I am feeling evil.

My colleague in the corner has just discovered the RealPlayer on her laptop, and has borrowed half a million R’n’B CDs from our new receptionist.

I hate R’n’B. I can’t help it. It prompts some kind of chemical reaction in my brain that short circuits the usual neural pathways and turns me into Tension Lady – She Can Break Computers Just By Looking At Them! (TL - SCBCJBYAT!) It took me almost a minute of strenuous thought to remember the word ‘acronym’ just now, because some woman is warbling tunelessly about her baby at a volume not quite loud enough for me to hear properly.

I can’t ask her to turn it off, because she normally puts up with my music without complaint. Today, however, I’m sorely tempted to ramp up the tension by putting on the Killers. And then running amok with a sharpened pencil.

I have to get out of here before my head explodes.