If you work in a bank or are a fanatical fan of Jesus -you really should avert your eyes now. Please.
Prologue:
I hate banking.
Of course I love money going into the bank… I just don’t like going to the bank.
I like the lovely sanitized online version of banking. No queues, no dumb forms, no expectations of polite chitchat with the teller -and as an added bonus I can do it in my pyjamas (if I wanted to, not that I do, just saying.)
( Okay, yeah sometimes I do. )
(Damn Alright…most of the times. Sheesh. Can you let it go now??)
Setting the scene:
I’m with my kidlets and we are standing in line at…you guessed it…the Bank.
Master 11 is listening to his ipoddy and Miss 8 is just standing looking adorable (which is her occupation until she is fourteen and nine months at which time I will push her to get a job at Maccas so in the future someone will look at her resume and say…my, my you understand procedures- you’re hired!). All in all we were pretty much minding our own business and I was doing MY BEST not to be annoyed by the very fact that I was standing in a queue at the bank waiting….ahh but you already know this about me… so moving right along…
Here comes the action:
For the first time ever at a bank-I felt that it was my lucky day.
Three tellers finished at once and I progressed to the front of the queue. I quickly looked at the hideously patterned carpet for a lucky shamrock or perhaps a shiny penny but couldn’t see one so I just stood quietly, gloating at the seventeen fockers behind me because…yes sir….I was next! Me!
Suck eggs everyone else.
And then it was my turn AND the teller was lovely.
She did the whole idle conversation thingy with my kids- totally absolving me of any participatory duties. This couldn’t get any better!
“How’s the school holidays going?”she said.
“Gooood.” they said.
“What have you done?” she said.
“We went to the movies, twice, had friends for sleep-overs, been bowling, rode our bikes, picnic at Jells park…
Fock. I thought. Their hols have been good. Bloody hell… maybe I AM a fantastic mum after all??
I was dwelling on this marvelous notion when a quote-lady-unquote tapped me on the shoulder. She was holding one of those plastic pocket thingys at me. It was filled with papers and a card with a big red rose on it.
“Oh sorry that’s not mine” I told her.
“You’re special” she said. And smiled.
I looked at her blankly.
“You’re special,” she said. And smiled. And pushed the placky folder into my hands.
“You’re special.” she said. Again.
“Erm thank you.” I said.
The queue of customers behind me did their best imitation of *not watching* and the teller’s eyes grew a little wide. But to her credit she played the consummate professional and just kept on counting the ten cent pieces.
The kids wanted to know what the quote-lady-unquote had given me.
It was a whole folder of Jaysus.
“Umm it’s just some hmmm… nice things.”
“But why did she give them to you?”
“Erm… because I’m special.”
“Oh,” my son said as we left the bank “be careful mum it could be cursed.”
(Shite! I’d forgotten that I’d let him watch The Lost Boys…)
“Nah,” I said “I don’t think it’s cursed. Look.” I showed it to him.
“Oh yeah, I see the word ‘Amen’. Prolly not cursed.” He agreed.
Just in case though, I held it by the very edge and shoved it in my bag.
Epilogue:
I’m not a religious person (for one thing I swear way too much- have ya noticed?) and I just say straight up (to avoid the hate mail) that I have no problem with people-who-have-the-faith-man. So this has nothing to do with Bible-Thumpers or the adoration of the big JC (peace be with you one and all).
This is, of course, just all about me.
There were a lot of people in the bank that day. I can’t help wondering why I was singled out as *special*.
Do I look special or act special? Nah. (Although I was wearing my kick-arse red boots.)
Am I on sale? I hope not.
Am I a departure from your regular routine? A prized dish in a restaurant? A reunion television show? No, No and No.
So I guess I will never know what made the quote-lady-unquote decide to bestow her special packet of eternal goodness on me.
But I have reached one conclusion.
I actually think that she might have been the… err… special one.