How may I help you?

So there I was today at the bank waiting for my number to appear on the screen and for the electronic voice to direct me and my number to a teller. Which bank was I at? I'm not saying but Sydney readers may recognise the heading of this posting as the form of words this bank once used to greet customers in the days before screens and electronic voices provided a less personal greeting.

Whilst waiting I perused the range of available tellers noting that only one male was amongst them. But he was enough for my antenna to beep SAMAQ in my head; ie Somewhat Attractive Mature Aged Queen. My intuition seemed immediately confirmed when I noticed his eyes carefully appraising his next customer as that young man approached his counter. My gaydar clearly was working.

And I continued to wait my turn. I was waiting to deposit two cheques. One cheque, made out to my name, into my account and one cheque, made out to my mother's name, into her account. Should all be easy peasey I thought as I wondered whether the screen and electronic voice would allocate my number to SAMAQ.

And so it came to pass as screen and electronic voice summoned me to SAMAQ's presence. No appraising eyes scanned me as I approached SAMAQ but I wasn't disappointed as I didn't really expect him to be waiting for an EOMAQ; ie Even Older Mature Age Queen. SAMAQ proceeded to tap away at his computer processing my cheque with quiet and effortless indifference.

Then SAMAQ turned to my mother's cheque. At that point I apologised for not providing her account number but I added, somewhat dangerously, I assumed he could confirm this from the bank's computer system.

At this point SAMAQ transformed into MAQWA; Mature Age Queen With Attitude. MAQWA informed me archly that my mother's cheque couldn't be deposited into my account; only into her account or a joint account. Now the deposit slip I was submitting clearly stated that the deposit was for her account by name and I could have been equally arch in response by drawing this to MAQWA's attention but I held my discipline and simply said 'yes, I do want it paid into her account'.

MAQWA now pounded his keyboard with pouty irritation as he took on the onerous task of obtaining my mother's account number from the bank's computer system. This took all of several seconds to accomplish at which point he hissed back at me that 'she has two accounts'. I hesitated momentarily to absorb this news, which was all that MAQWA needed for a sneer to appear across his face until I realised and commented 'well, one of of those is her account and the other is the joint account with me.

MAQWA's sneer disappeared as he said 'yes, that is correct'. My head was now saying to him 'look dummy, I've told you twice now, once in writing and once orally, that I want the cheque deposited to her account so why mention the joint account' but my discipline held again and I said 'into her account please'.

MAQWA completed the transaction with every inch of his body language shouting 'why do I get all the loony customers?'.

My discipline held to the end when I told MAQWA that 'I will make sure I have my mother's account number with me in future' whereas what I was actually thinking was 'next time dickhead I will bring the number to save you the trouble of putting yourself out to assist a customer'.

How may I help you indeed!