$100

Banks are the bane of my existence. I hate them. And I always have, so today's incident is just another drop in the bucket.

I have a check from Dad for $100. It's drawn at his bank, which is Bank of America. I looked in the phone book to find the nearest branch, since I don't have a bank myself and would need to cash it there. Aparently they don't call them branches here, they call them forks. So I was about to call the closest Bank of America fork and realized it was actually Bank of American Fork, which is a city just north of Provo. Dumb. So it turns out there's no Bank of America around.

Blueshorts volunteered to cash the check for me if I could verify the funds in the account. So I called the automated bank teller guy and he had an option for check verification. I followed his instructions, then told him the number of the account. He repeated the account number back to me, then asked if it was correct. I assured him it was, and he told me he was sorry but he wasn't allowed to do account verifications right now. I hung up on him.

Then I called the local branch. The lady there was very friendly-sounding unless you listened to what she was saying. Between apologies she explained that she couldn't give me information on whether my dad had enough money for the check unless he were here with me. Which is stupid, because then he could have just checked his own stupid account. So then she told me that if I cashed the check and my dad didn't have the money, my bank would charge me a fine. And then she suggested that I could try one of their branches in Nevada or a neighboring state and offered to look up locations for me. I decilned her offer and hung up.

Bank of America my eye! More like Bank of America Except For Utah. What gives with this state? Crappy produce, no banks, no Jack-in-the-Box, no In-n-Out, snow, no beach, no water polo, no Round Table, no good forests. I'm annoyed.

They do have Eclipse, though. Last night's concert was awesome. They have a new member, and he really pulled his weight. The highlight was when they sang "Everybody Dance Now" and tons of twelve-year-old girls ran out there and started dancing. And then Blue Shorts and Pinetree ran up there too, making a conspicuous spectacle of themselves.

El Veneno came with us. He is really chill. I like him lots. We served in the same mission, which was weird for me because I never meet anyone who served there. Eventually I need to splain the whole Peircian semiotic color triangle thing to him, and to you, casual reader. Anyway, I hope he sticks around.

I have noticed that there seem to be a lot of people here who dislike me for some reason or another. It's a weird thing for me. I really think it has a lot to do with my frankness. Oh, well. i just live my life happily and feel markedly free of drama. It's annoying to get these little blips on the enemy radar, but if anyone has something against me, he can just tell me or he can go die. I am not going to waste my happy time tracking down everyone who feels that I hurt someone they care about because they heard some unfounded rumor. I won't be blackmailed like that. Fortunately, I have tons of friends who back me and are a major blessing in my life. I appreciate those who stick up for me even when I'm not around. In the end, I expect this miasma of hate to blow away, since the source of most of the stink is officially out of my life.

The living end? (you know what that's from, anybody?)