What’s-His-Name and the Stimulus Package
The summer of Ought Eight, the Mister and I were up against it, financially speaking.
Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t as if we were eating cans of Alpo for supper or hiding in the basement like Ross Perot’s stinky old aunt whenever the landlord came a-knockin’. As a matter of fact, in some circles we might be considered a “wealthy couple” – - that is, if the ‘08 had a ""19" in front of it. Nevertheless, in our house, money was tighter than Charlie Sheen on Saturday night.
Given the direness of our straits and the straightness of our dires, with the news that the gov’ment was going to bestow $600 upon every citizen who’d filed an income tax return, we were both skeptical. As a matter of fact, when I first heard the term “stimulus package,” I thought Viagra was launching a new ad campaign. But in the Spring we received a little note from the IRS stating that – believe it or not – our check was in the mail.
In the days and weeks that followed we watched our mailbox the way a casino operator watches a card-counter. But every day, no dice. Every day the mister would whistle a hopeful tune in his brisk walk over to the mailbox and hum the blues as he plodded back. Every day I would ask him the same question, the answer of which I already knew: “Did you get your check yet?”
“No, Eunice,” he’d say, shaking his head, “not today.”
Every day the mail carrier would come and go and aside from the usual bills and letters inviting us to join the AARP, our mailbox – as the detectives on Law & Order always say – “came up empty.” To add to our discouragement, all of our friends had received their checks months earlier and had wasted little time heading over to the Wal-Mart to purchase their new flat screen TVs. We scarcely had enough dough to buy a flatbread sandwich to eat in front of our old one.
Finally the day arrived – and so did the check! Giddy as a kid tearing into a package on Christmas morning, the mister opened the envelope. He took one look at his check, and his face fell flatter than a rehearsal cake on the set of the Rachael Ray show. He turned the flimsy slip of paper over and over, shook the envelope to see if something else would fall out, and then for a long time he stared at the check as if he were an Eskimo coming face-to-face with an elephant on an ice floe. Though it’s been said that I’m not the most piquant spice on the spice rack, I can pick up hints. So I asked him, flat-out: “Something wrong?”
“So much for your ‘economic stimulus package,’ “ he said, handing me the check. “Look at the amount.”
I shook my head. “That wouldn’t even stimulate a longhorn if he had 1500 volts of live electricity prodded up his rump roast.” To make a long story short – -( too late!): our economic stimulus package was less than standard because of an outstanding debt. The creditor had skimmed a share off the top, and we were left with the paltry difference.
“That debt was from 42 years ago!” I exclaimed. “One would think that there’d be a statute of limitations.”
“In this case it’s a ‘statue’ –-‘cause we’ve been stiffed!” he said. “What the hell,” he said. “A sixteenth of a loaf is better than none. I’ll just take it down to the bank and cash it.”
As the midget said to his six-foot fiancee, “Easier said than done.” On that particular day, there was a run on the bank. (My own stockings weren’t in all that great of a shape, either.) Evidently there had been a rumor that the bank corporate headquarters were planning to
invest the bank’s assets in a real estate development, namely a community of condominiums converted from former nuclear power plant. That morning the line of depositors wanting their money back made Black Friday in the Great Depression look like a New Year’s Eve Party in Greenwich Village. Just to make it even more challenging, it happened to be one of those Triple H days: hazy, hot, and humorless. Did I say “hot”? It was so hot that up at the University campus they fried an egghead on the sidewalk.
It wasn’t all that cool inside the bank either. They must have cut the AC to conserve operating expenses. The crowds of customers made the ambience particularly pungent, if you get my drift. Actually, I did get a drift of perspiration so thick that for a moment I thought we’d stumbled into Larry the Cable Guy’s dressing room instead of a branch office of one of the nation’s distinguished financial institutions. (And an institution was where we belonged.)
Nevertheless, we waited our turn. And waited. My dogs were just about ready to roll over and play dead for real when the irate depositor in front of us had closed out his account and we were “up.” The mister slid the tax rebate check to the teller. “Would you cash this, please?
We have an account here.”
“You have my sympathy,” the teller said. She picked up the check and held it up to the light, turned it around a couple of times, examined it with a magnifying glass. “Okay. I need to see six forms of I.D.”
“Six forms of I.D.!” The mister looked shocked. Shocked! “Who do I look like? Sybil?”
“She’s too young to remember that movie, Dear,” I whispered.
The mister was doing a slow burn. Maybe not so slow. “Let me get this straight. I have to produce a half-dozen pieces of paper –“
”Documents–“ the teller interrupted.
“–Documents to prove who I am to get my own money?”
“In lieu of that, you can tell me the mother’s maiden name.”
“Oh that’s easy. Her name was —“
The teller shook her head again. “Not your mother’s maiden name–my mother’s maiden name.”
At that point, the mister looked as if he were about ready to punch somebody. Even if he did, he would’ve had nothing to lose. After all, how could they arrest him if they didn’t know who the hell he was? Instead of reacting with violence, though, he ripped off a deposit slip from the pad on the counter, deposited the check in his account, and then did the opposite with a withdrawal slip for the exact amount.
At last we concluded our transactions and were once again out on the street – in the literal sense. “Well, you know, Dear, you really can’t blame that teller. She’s just being cautious. Some folks get their identities stolen every day.”
“If I were stealing someone’s identity, I wouldn’t pick mine, I’ll tell you that much,” he said. “Come on, I’ll use our windfall to buy you an iced coffee.”
I looked at the thin roll of low denomination bills in his hands. “Uh, maybe you ought to make it a ‘small.’ ”
All in all, what’s-his-name’s economic stimulus package could have been worse. At least no one is monitoring our phone calls and emails. They’d never be able to keep agents on the case. One by one they’d all drop dead – - of boredom.
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