kidattypewriter

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Banker Poetry

I went to the bank on the corner of Bell Street and Sydney Road this Saturday, as I often do, to save some cash and take some other cash out. I wasn't expecting amusement from the banker - I guess you never do - much less to get the most prosaic slap-down ever. And she looked so nice, too ...

...

TIM: ... and can I get forty dollars cash, please.

BANKER: Okay. Just type in your pin number, please.

TIM: Actually, make it Forty-five dollars, cash. Five dollars for top up. In notes.

BANKER: Okay.

(Banker does her thing and Tim does his thing and things are quiet as things tend to be).

TIM: (Wonderingly) When I say cassssh .... what do you think of?

I mean, do you think of coins or notes?

BANKER: I can give it to you in coins if you like.

TIM: No no.

(Opens up wallet and takes out a coin, rolls it around it his hand, throws it up in the air once or twice and catches it, enjoying its glitter and flash in the Westpac light)

I mean, coins feeeeeel different, don't they? Coins feel different to notes.

BANKER: Yeah, coins are heavier.

TIM: (Places coin back in wallet).

BANKER: (Bats at a fly with a piece of paper)

TIM: (Looking around at the hermetically sealed bank) Where do they come from, do you think?

BANKER: (Nods to the door) The door.

TIM: Yeah. They come from the customers. If only they didn't have customers in the bank, then everyth...

BANKER: No. They come in through the door.

...


Gosh, I liked her. I was reading Raymond Chandler at the time, but Chandler's sparse prose had nothing on here that day. Hope I get her next time I go to the bank ...

9 comments:

Ben.H said...

I think of coins 'cos they're metal which is worth more than paper. This is something I have known from an early age.

My parents used to amuse themselves when I was little by giving me a 20c piece wrapped in a dollar note, and watch me unwrap the coin and throw the dollar away. This was back before we had more than three TV channels, and before I started high school.

TimT said...

Exactly, and when you read about money, you tend to think of coins, because they're always giving out pieces of gold or pieces of silver or 'pieces of eight', in the case of Long John Silver.

When I was veeeery little, my folks would give me twenty cents every two weeks for pocket money! Very occasionally, I'd find a one dollar coin on the ground and think I was the richest man in the world.

Later, much later, we got two dollars every two weeks, and gosh we felt rich. And I can't begin to tell you how gobsmacked I was when my brother found 20 dollars lying on the ground!

Nowadays I get hundreds of dollars put in the bank every week, and I've got a couple of thousand saved up, not doing much - just waiting to be used on a plane trip ...

Thee wur lucky, lad!

Jellyfish said...

This is post disturbs me slightly, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. Your dialogue sounds ever-so-slightly sociopathic, in an endearing kind of way.

Caz said...

You go into banks?

You talk to bank tellers?

Your eccentricities are getting out of hand Tim.

Anonymous said...

She charged you 2.50 in fees for that conversation.

You can take that off her dinner when you take her out on a date.

I was also disturbed by this post, and from the sounds of it she was mildly disturbed by you. *giggle*

TimT said...

Reading over it, it disturbs me slightly too. 'She looked nice.' 'I liked her.' Eesh! She was fifty years old! She looked nice because people who are old enough to be your grandmother are meant to be nice!

Serves me right for doing late night posts. Oh well, at least I came across as a sociopath. There's a turn up.

Ben.H said...

I found five hundred dollars in the street earlier this year, but they were the wrong kind of dollars.

Ampersand Duck said...

Did she cough at the end without putting her hand over her mouth?

TimT said...

I must admit, I didn't notice. What would be the significance of an open-mouthed cough?

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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