The Road To Not-Heaven Is Paved With The Deposit Slips Of Others

What is the world coming to? What kind of speedy-handbasket-needing, not-heaven-hole do we live in where a loving mother cannot order deposit slips on the checking account of her ever-extorting son?

I went to the bank today (because I could, you know, what with not having school for the fourth out of five days this week) to put in a token amount of cash to replace that which the #1 son frivolously squandered on a sleeping bag, folding chair, and thermal shirt yesterday in order to spend last night camping out in line on the parking lot of the off-campus housing office.

Every month, I deposit #1's cash allowance in his checking account. It's the least I can do, since he has tuition and housing expenses covered through his scholarships and RA stipend this year. I even get a refund most months. But now I have run out of deposit slips. I had been using the ones he had when he first opened his account. Back then, he was a minor, and my name appeared along with his. Those deposit slips have continued to work, even though he updated his account and took my name off last summer when he started working. Guess he thought I might clean out his life savings. Anyhoo, we discussed it, and agreed that he could assume the responsibility for that account.

Now I have run out of slips. #1's slips. The deposit kind, of course. We're not a slip-wearing family. Unlike a true lady, WE reveal everything. So I went online to order some deposit slips on the cheap, just like I get my checks, but I needed a bunch of numbers. The ones off the copy of the last deposit slip were not enough. So I had to ask #1, and got all the numbers, and then decided that rather than go back and spend another 20 minutes fiddling about with that order, I'd just ask the bank to order some when I went in to make that little deposit today. You know. Because I was out of school.

WELL! It seems that a person can't just waltz into a bank (okay, perhaps waltz isn't technically correct, because we're not much on 3/4 time here at the Mansion, and I don't especially want to be broadcast box-stepping on closed-circuit camera in the event of a robbery) and ask to order deposit slips for another person's account. Even if that person has a copy of a deposit slip from that other person's account. Can you believe it?

Yes, we can't have people putting money in other peoples' checking accounts all willy-nilly. Oh, but yes we can, IF we used a counter deposit slip. Uh huh. The bank is perfectly willing to TAKE the money, and to take it with scrawled numbers on a generic deposit slip. They just won't let you order printed deposit slips. I suppose it's because the money for printing comes out of the account. What a load of hogwash!

However, I DID pick up a whole stack of those counter deposit slips, and in my free time, I'll take my trusty slim Zebra pen, and jot down the numbers off that copy of #1's last deposit slip so I have a plethora of them ready.

I'm a writer, you know.