December 1, 2004

• Just another bizarre morning

  
  

  I went to the local Wells Fargo this morning to see about getting hooked up to be able to take credit cards.  This is kind of a big deal for me, being a really small business owner–on the retail food chain, I am maybe two notches up above the guy standing on a street corner selling fake Rolexes out of his trench coat.

  
  

  Anyway, I go to see Renhilde, a nice lady for whom English is her second or third language.  I noticed some striking snowflake obsidian jewelry she was wearing, looked like something Kathy would have made.  So we talked about rocks for a while, I told her  about the metaphysical properties of snowflake obsidian, how it was a dichroic and so forth.  Not exactly your usual busniess conversation, but hey, this is Alaska after all.

  
  

  She called the Wells Fargo people and got stuff going, I dragged in my business license from the car, explained the deal about my real name versus the name on my birth certificate and so on.  Things were going well, then I called Kathy to confirm my email address.  I left a message, she called back, and I hit the END button on my cell, cutting her right off.  Mercury retrograde strikes again!  So I called her, got a busy signal, she finally got hooked up with me, told me to use a different email address, that  the one I had given them at first wasn’t valid or working or something.  More Mercury retrograde stuff, I guess.

  
  

  Then the fax from the Wells Fargo main office came through. I was about to sign it when I noted that they had really screwed up my name–they had it “Graffox” instead of “Greyfox.”  Never mind that I had spelled it twice, AND they had a copy of my business license, which had been faxed to them.  More Mercury retrograde stuff.  I told the person there that I was not surprised, warned her that this stuff would be happening for the next three weeks or so.  She mentioned several recent instances of communications screw-ups, had been wondering what went wrong, and seemed relieved to know it was just some astrological mischief.

  
  

  Then she asked me what color pony I wanted.  That threw me for a minute. I told her I lived in a little cabin, didn’t have room for bales of hay, much less a pony.  It seems Wells Fargo is giving away a stuffed animal horsie with new accounts, choice of two colors, called Kathy to ask what color she wanted, and communications got screwed up again–I said palimino instead of pinto or something.  I thought pinto was a bean, but never mind,  she finally settled on the toast-colored one with the white tail and mane.  Almost forgot about that, but thank god I remembered the mane.  Ahem.

  
  

  The deal included a free business checking and savings account.  I had to deposit $100 in each, she said.  I gulped.  She said, no problem, you can withdraw all of it tomorrow if you want to.  I relaxed, and handed over my rent money.

  
  

  Meanwhile, we are still waiting for the revised fax with my right name to come through.  It finally came, I signed it a few times and promised to give them my first-born son (ha ha, joke’s on them, I didn’t tell them about the vasectomy).

  
  

  Another paper that came with the contract said I need to fax them a copy of my phone bill and some other stuff I didn’t have.  Renhilde said, no problem, Amy would have mentioned it if it was important.  So I guess I’m okay on that.

  
  

  There was something else I wanted to mention–oh yeah, Wells Fargo asked about my advertising campaign.  I told them I walked up and down on the bike path next to the highway carrying a sign that said “SALE”.  I bet they’re they’re still tittering about that one at the main office.  Same thing when they asked for my street address.  I said, what street address?  Up here, that is like “the cabin next to the really big spruce tree.”  We finally settled on “Mile 49 Parks Highway, Cabin #8.”  But I warned them, that wasn’t my mailing address.

  
  

  Oh, and they wanted to ship my credit card stamper thingie UPS.  I told them, bad idea, UPS drivers up here tended to either get lost or steal the stuff. She said she would try to have it shipped USPS Priority.

  
  

  I wanted to come up with a really cute ending for this, but what with Mercyreo beiudsfs rtrp[sdgdf;l ;hkxj. . . . .

  • 6:53 pm
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