[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Carruthers

More accurately it's what irritated me yesterday.
I did the usual grocery shopping and, when waiting at the checkout, saw that the lady behind me only had three small items, probably for her lunch at work.
As I had a trolley load of stuff I asked if she would like to go in front of me.
She accepted and, in fairness, offered profuse thanks. They were scanned in seconds and then... and then... the fun started.
A lot of ferreting about in her purse for the number of coins required produced nothing.
Then the same exercise with folding money was similarly fruitless, so there was nothing for it but to pay by card and a search for one that she could use eventually succeeded.
However it didn't end there because a money off coupon had to be located before matters could be successfully concluded.
Tolstoy could have written one of his longer chapters in the time all this took.
I know the lady on the checkout quite well and 'knowing glances' were exchanged during this saga.
I never quite understood the phrase 'no good deed ever goes unpunished'. I do now.

Reminds me of this Richard Brautigan story,

I have a bank account because I grew tired of burying my money in the back yard and something else happened. I was burying some money a few years ago when I came across a human skeleton.

The skeleton had the remains of a shovel in one hand and a half-dissolved coffee can in the other hand. The coffee can was filled with a kind of rustdust material that I think was once money, so now I have a bank account.

But most of the time that doesn’t work out very well either. When I wait in line there are almost always people in front of me who have complicated banking problems. I have to stand there and endure the financial cartoon crucifixions of America.

It goes something like this: There are three people in front of me. I have a little check to cash. My banking will only take a minute. The check is already endorsed. I have it in my hand, pointed in the direction of the teller.

The person just being waited on now is a woman fifty years old. She is wearing a long black coat, though it is a hot day. She appears to be very comfortable in the coat and there is a strange smell coming from her. I think about it for a few seconds and realize that this is the first sign of a complicated banking problem.

Then she reaches into the folds of her coat and removes the shadow of a refrigerator filled with sour milk and year-old carrots. She wants to put the shadow in her savings account. She’s already made out the slip.

I look up at the ceiling of the bank and pretend that it is the Sistine Chapel.

The old woman puts up quite a struggle before she’s taken away. There’s a lot of blood on the floor. She bit an ear off one of the guards.

I guess you have to admire her spunk.

The check in my hand is for ten dollars.

The next two people in line are actually one person. They are a pair of Siamese twins, but they each have their own bank books.

One of them is putting eighty-two dollars in his savings account and the other one is closing his savings account. The teller counts out 3,574 dollars for him and he puts it away in the pocket on his side of the pants.

All of this takes time. I look up at the ceiling of the bank again but I cannot pretend that it is the Sistine Chapel any more. My check is sweaty as if it had been written in 1929.

The last person between me and the teller is totally anonymous looking. He is so anonymous that he’s barely there.

He puts 237 checks down on the counter that he wants to deposit in his checking account. They are for a total of 489,000 dollars. He also has 611 checks that he wants to deposit in his savings account. They are for a total of 1,754,961 dollars.

His checks completely cover the counter like a success snow storm. The teller starts on his banking as if she were a long distance runner while I stand there thinking that the skeleton in the back yard had made the right decision after all.

"Depositing the shadow of her refrigerator" has become shorthand for all such situations in my household.