Martha

When I was in college I used to have this little ritual. Every couple of months I would find myself in some sort of life or death money mess where I had bounced some check or gambled with the ATM gods one too many times or not made a deposit into my account fast enough to beat out the ticking clock that was the electric bill payment I had made a day or so before hoping and praying that there would be money there when they went to cash it.

And whenever this happened I would skip all my morning classes, drag my sad sack self over to Barnett Bank on Thomasville road, and beg the Martha to make it all better.

The Martha was Martha Peterson, the customer service representative who would smile and nod her head while she pointed out my mistakes on a printed bank statement with the tip of her pencil. She would tell me that when I deposited money after a certain hour of the day that it wouldn't be available to spend until two full days had passed. She was the one who told me to go ahead and subtract bank service charges from my balance at the beginning of every month so that I wouldn't ever get "surprised" by them again. She would tell me these things time and time again, and never seemed to get angry or bothered when I came back the next month with the same exact problem.

But most important of all - at the end of every session where Martha would tell me what my banking mistakes were, she would go into her computer, wave her magic wand and somehow reverse all of the fees that her bank had levied against me for my misgivings.

No matter how much her talks had proven just how much the mistakes were my fault, no matter how much money her bank stood to gain in Insufficient Funds fees from my unique inability to synchronize my deposits with my spending, no matter how many times I went to her with the exact same sob story - she would take my pain away with the push of a button.

I even remember asking her once if what she was doing was legal.

But Martha would just smile and fill out her forms -- and within 20 minutes of arriving at her desk, I would always have cash again.

As the years went by and I moved on with my life I had to force myself to get a little better with my money, what with mortgages and other high-dollar bills breathing down my neck, but you know how it is sometimes. You miscalculate a little something here, or forget to write down a little ATM thing there, or you decide to get a cup of coffee at dunkin donuts before work when you really don't have the money -- and then one thing bounces, then another, and then it's fee fee fee fee fee and the next thing you know your ATM card is getting rejected like a wrinkled dollar getting kicked out of a vending machine.

The weird thing is that whenever this happens to me now (like it did last week), I start feeling like I've gotten in trouble at college or something.

Anyways, first chance I got I headed to the bank office near me and began talking to one of the people there. Her name was Angie. Cute, dressed sharply, not very good with her computer (but in a way that was kinda cute as well). She printed out my statement on the back of an office memo, and then piece by piece went over every fee with me, circling the dates with her pen. Each fee had a reason, and she found a way to trace them all back to a check card purchase that I apparently hadn't covered in my records, but clearly put me over the line once my credit card bill was paid.
My fault. Clear as day on the paper before me.
There was an awkward pause. She said something about overdraft protection, but I wasn't really listening. All I could think of was how short I was going to come up this month.

Then she smiled, clicked a few keys, and reversed the charges.
And more to myself than anyone else, I said,
"Thanks, Martha"
[Listening to: Mindless Self Indulgence, "Prom"]

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