I hate you and I don't even know you

"I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I don't even know you, but I hate you. I hope all the bad things in life happen to you and nobody else. " --Dave Chappelle as Silky Johnson in the Player Haters' Ball sketch

On Tuesday I attempted to withdraw money from one of my bank's ATMs and the fucker shut down on me. Spit out my card, but no cash. Still, the money was shown as being withdrawn from my account. I know in the grand scheme of things, $60 is not a big deal. But right now, that's a lot of money to me. Money is tight for me and I had calculated very carefully how much money I could withdraw.

Obviously, I called the bank, they assured me everything would be fine. Liars! All was not fine, and after another phone call, I was again told everything would be fine. Another lie! Today, I got to deal with two rude bank employees, one of whom told me I would have to go to the bank with the offending ATM to work this out.

Suffice it to say, I was upset. I thought a lot about my mom, what she would say to me in this situation, and I was fully focusing all my concentration on a) not losing it with the bank employees and b) not falling into an endless hole of self-pity and why-me-ness.

Most women, at some point in their lives, will be patronizingly told to "smile!" by a male whom she does not know. It happens to me at least once a year and every time it does, I stare dumbfounded before awkwardly laughing. I have always wanted to have some sort of snappy, witty comeback to said douchebags.

Today, as I grumped my way towards the bank, the sun shining, birds singing, spring clearly arrived at last, focusing all my power on not screaming or bursting into tears, a man walked past me and said, "Smile!" Did he really just say that to me? To me??? I turned and yelled over my shoulder, "Fuck you!" and kept walking. Witty, no. But I think it got my point across. (Matlock later suggested, and I like this, "Why, are you going to take a fucking picture?")

At the bank, the nice lady told me that she couldn't understand why the customer service people on the phone had sent me here - after all, she just winds up calling them. I filed a claim for my $60 with her help. I am entirely lacking in any confidence that I will get my money back and fully expect to have to call the bank another four or five times before they refuse to correct the problem.

I wish I could keep my money under my mattress. And I sure hope that the next time some dude tells me to smile, I will tell him where to go.