OR My Morning Coronary
OR
The Gay Librarian and the Case of the Missing Decimal Point
OR Francois Viete: one Frenchman who is your friend
Prologue: Last night I drove home, the gas needle was low and I stopped to get gas. I put my debit card into the pump, removed it quickly as a good citizen does, and was given the message “Unable to accept”. I’ve had this happen before when I knew there was plenty of money in the account (usually it’s an inability for computers to communicate or whatever as explained in the book “Gas Pumps Are From Venus, Bank Computers are Really Big Databases that Aren’t From Venus”) so I used the $5.00 in cash that I had on me and thought no more of it.
Little did I know that had Marley’s Ghost and Hamlet’s Father been dancing a soft-shoe on my Saturn it could not have been more an ominous portend of a journey that would end in the darkest fissures of the valley of Gehenna (or at least in the manager’s office of MidSouth Federal Credit Union).
The Story Proper:
Since I used my only cash to buy gas last night I needed some more, so, thunk I, I’ll use my ATM card to get some from the ATM, for that is why they are there, the dispensation of cash being their entelechy and raison d’etre all rolled into one fiscal disco ball. At 8:20 a.m., my hair attended and a terrier peed, I alighted and to the ATM did make pilgrimage, secure, as I was young in those days and filled with optimism, that the ATM and the gods in some order loved me. How I long to return to those days, the revelations of the bluebirds sung into my ear and the hope of youth still abundant as the happy darkies sang in the fields and the
Anyway, I’m foreshadowing. I get to the ATM, request $20.00, and receive the message “Funds not available”. The sheol? I thought. I performed the necessary sacrifices for a balance check and received a digital readout of
-$12.06
That’s “minus” 12.06, as in “not $12.06” but “less than $12.06” and in fact “less than 0” by approximately $12.06 (a concept not even considered possible until Brahmagupta proposed it in the 6th century BCE, until when I’d still have had an ATM balance).
I remained perfectly calm other than a mild major coronary incident, temporary loss of sight and bladder control, and being privy to visions and voices of my dead relatives debating whether I should step into the light. (My father wanted me to come but only because he wanted a box of King Edward “see-gars- you can’t get the damned things up here… down here… over here… wherever the hell we are”.)
I’m bad about not balancing my account often enough and usually not being exactly with the bank on my balance, but I always have at least a rough estimate of how much I have and I haven’t bounced a check since I was an underemployed wage-slave the last time we were at war with Iraq. (Aldous Huxley drove his wife and accountants nuts by never keeping records of checks with the argument “The bank is always good about letting me know when I don’t have enough money”; he is one-third of the triumvirate that died on November 22, 1963, the other two being JFK and C.S. Lewis; there’s a play by Peter Kreeft about them in the anteroom to the afterlife entitled “Between Heaven and Hell”- great premise but unfortunately it sucks.)
I waited until the bank opened and asked for a printout of my transactions. “We charge two dollars for those” said the officious teller. “I don’t have any cash and I don’t think you want me to write you a check” say I. She lets me look at the screen. One entry terrifies me.
FLASHBACK- December 30, 2003
I had the last in a series of dental appointments with a local office that I’ll identify as "the dentist has the same name as a famous character from the Old West who was born in Griffin, Georgia. This was a simple follow-up to install a crown. As I was leaving I asked if I had a total. The receptionist told me
”Your insurance handles most of today. Your only total is nine ninety-two.”
I give her my debit card. She makes a slip and writes
992
on the slip. I ask
“Do you mean nine dollars and ninety-two cents or nine hundred and ninety two dollars?”
“No, just nine-dollars and ninety-two cents. Installing the crown is simple and insurance pays most and you’re paid up to date.”
So I made a decimal between the nines that Helen Keller could read and signed the slip.
Guess what she entered it as?
RETURN TO PRESENT
I explained to the lady at the bank what had happened. She didn’t really understand the reference to Aldous Huxley and the play, but was cooperative. She asked me to call the dental clinic (using my calling card) and I did. It’s closed today so I received their answering service.
“Is this an emergency?”
Oooh yeah.
A few minutes later the dentist, a Donald Sutherland on valium clone, calls. I explain what’s happening.
“Oh dear… well that’s very bad" he says in his stoned Mr. Rogers cadence. "Unfortunately that’s something that ‘Carol’” (not her real name) “will have to handle… I’ll have her call you.”
A few minutes later “Carol” called. I explained the situation. Her response:
“Hee hee hee… oops! Well, we’ll just reverse that. Unfortunately I’m not at the office, but I can do it later today probably.”
Oh no rush bouboulina, it’s not like I’m TWELVE DOLLARS AND SIX CENTS (OR TWELVE HUNDRED AND SIX DOLLARS DEPENDING ON WHERE YOU INSERT OR DON’T THE @$(&ING DECIMAL POINT!) BELOW BROKE!!!
Anyway, the bank was very understanding and, after getting the approval of the manager, board of directors, 2/3 of the Arkansas Congress of Day Laborers and a virgin shaman from Quebec gave a temporary credit of $992 to my account (there’s a new hole in the ozone from the trees felled for the paperwork) contingent upon Nurse Goodbody’s reversal, so I can eat and run and jump and play like the other children this weekend.
Anyway, that’s why I was late to work this morning (really was).
I HATE PEOPLE WHO DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW THEIR BASIC STUPIDITY NEGATIVELY AFFECTS OTHERS AND SEEM TO HAVE GRADUATED FROM TEH “NO SENSE OF URGENCY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT”.
How was your morning?