Bank is a four letter word.

Write something.

People worry. Some are-you-okay emails from blogger friends during my short absence, an imperative from our future “god emperor of earth,” with Jess D’Zerts on backup in the comments. God, (If you’ll excuse me, Marko), it just shows you how I rattle on if I’m counted AWOL that quickly.

It’s the house in Southern India, you see. Snake-infested and alive with slithering creatures. The help has fled, believing that I must have offended a goddess somewhere along the line and they are anxious to disassociate as quickly as possible. I’ve had to make my own bed, if you can imagine.

There was the spa accident. You can’t get good help, I swear, and I’d meant to write as soon as I pried the mineral-packed youth-restoring mud out of my nostrils and my hair grew back. Stupid girl. I didn't tip her, either.

It’s not easy.

Then there was Kevin of Big Fat Bank Inc. When the receptionist chirps, “I’ve put you in with Kevin at 10:00 tomorrow,” I have a premonition that involves someone wearing a suit, young enough to be my grandchild, priggish enough to be my grandfather’s Baptist minister, and unkindly disposed and grudging in attitude towards those of us who, a few years back, fell from the stellar heights of a life-long A+ credit rating into bankruptcy. Long story – and merely a footnote to the point here.

In my premonition, Kevin is automatically white. In that I am mistaken. Apparently Kevin-ness is not confined to one culture or race. In fact whiteness, as I think of it in its most negative aspects, is not even confined to Caucasians. Either that or all young bankers assume the name Kevin, along with the priggish air of someone perpetually stepping over a homeless person on the pavement. He’s opening my business account and he’s polite. He’s humorless as a block of Formica.

We proceed through the list of no’s to fill in the blanks on his computer screen: no RRSP, no Mutual Funds, no car, no property. He misses, I think to myself, no debts, no apologies, no pickle in my nether regions.

I make it clear I intend to give Big Fat Bank Inc. as little of my money as humanly possible. This further endears me to Kevin, who is looking downright pained by this point. As if I’m causing his suit to wrinkle, or his underwear to ride up between the cheeks of his very tight ass. I offer him a couple of Fisherman’s Friend cold tablets for his stuffed up nose, dumping them out of their grimy paper packet onto his pristine desk. He thanks me. They lay there like forensic evidence at a crime scene.

I can almost hear Kevin’s thoughts. I know that Kevin is at the age where he still believes that sound, practical planning can stave off the shocks and vicissitudes of life, that life can actually be controlled, managed, kept in order and predicted. Poor Kevin.

Departing with the few free cheques and deposit slips Kevin will grant (far less than if he liked me), I politely refuse to order a set for $119.00 (“but that’s with tax and shipping, the call center woman tells me when I’m pricing them). I depart vowing to become famous and rich and send my press clippings to Kevin when his wife leaves him and his children become sex offenders, when the market crashes and money has less value and use than toilet paper.

But far be from me to be petty. I smile and thank him for his time.

Then I go home, do a download of a new version of Acrobat, install an extra feature I don’t want, uninstall it - partially - just enough to leave random, file-fragmenting bits remaining, and accidentally fuck my video card up royally. On my new computer. (Mac users, I’m warning you. Just don’t.)

Minor Diety, who I’m nominating for major sainthood very shortly, is coming over tomorrow. I have duly confessed, in all humility, that I should only be allowed technology up to and including the Etch-A-Sketch. And he’s taken pity.

I can’t write tomorrow because last Saturday, I snapped my prescription glasses in half and I have to pick the new ones up.

Right now, my coat, boots, and the clothing I wore (right down to my skin) are drying in artful arrangements on the doorknobs as God (the original one) decided he didn’t like the Maritimes today and LO, he sent the gale winds and driving rain.

You see?

Thanks for checking on me, everyone. As you can see, I’m doing splendidly.

Or still laughing, anyway. Really.