On our way to our cabin in the woods, Sauerkraut and I stopped along the way for some 
groceries for the weekend as well as for some beverages aka beer. I also needed to stop at our local credit union bank to make some changes to our bank account; namely, I needed to change my name on our account from my maiden name to my married name. It’s only taken me sixteen years to do this; I never had a reason to change it. That is, until I started earning pay cheques of my very own after twenty-five plus years. These cheques were endorsed in my married name. The bank appeased me when I deposited my cheques in the ATM but they did so by holding onto my cheque for three to five business days before clearing the cheque. They were making a point. Either my cheques be made out in my maiden name or I change my name properly on our account to reflect my married name.
So into the bank I went armed with my marriage certificate which I was hoping was actually legal because the minister who married Sauerkraut and me on the shores of Spectacle Lake over sixteen years ago, was drunk as a skunk when he did. In his infinite wisdom, the minister, who was only slightly soused the night before at the rehearsal dinner, decided that he would have our witnesses sign their part of the certificate then rather than at the actual wedding ceremony. This meant that only Sauerkraut and I would be signing the certificate after our vows. I guess he was trying to save time in order to get to the bar faster.
After I told the teller what my business was, I began holding my breath because she 
seemed to regard the certificate as suspicious. She examined it carefully and took an unusually long amount of time examining it. She turned it over and over and over again carefully examining every word and, I am sure, the type of paper the certificate was printed on. She hardly gave my other identification a second glance. I mean, for the love of God and all things holy, my driver’s licence photo looks like a penitentiary mug shot. Shouldn’t that have raised more suspicion than my marriage certificate?
I was beginning to sweat. Did she recognize the minister’s name and know about his penchant for the drink? Had she heard about other marriages being void that he had performed in the past? Come on, lady, say something! I’m dying here.
That’s when I heard a man bellow from the middle of the bank, “Hey, what’s the hold up here?” Of course, in my anxiety-riddled ‘I’m not legally married’ mind I mistakenly heard, “This is a holdup!”
Me:
It is amazing how quickly our minds can process information. In the mere couple of seconds it took after hearing this crazed man utter those words to when I turned around to actually look at him, I had the following thoughts:
- Hell no! Sauerkraut and I haven’t been to our cabin in over a month now and we are in serious withdrawal. I dare you to rob this bank now.
- Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Just my luck. I haven’t been in this bank in forever and the one time I come in, it gets robbed.
- Do you know how long it actually took me to find this illegal legal marriage certificate and how long it has taken this teller to accept it and now you’re going to come in here and interrupt it by robbing the bank? I don’t think so, Tim. I am getting this done NOW.
- This will seriously make a good blog post.
Not once in my loopy thought processes did I ever consider my personal safety. Nor had I considered how I was going to deal with it if it truly was a bank robbery. I mean, what was I going to do? Beat him to death with my marriage certificate? Stab him in the eye with the pen I used to sign the bank receipt? Live blog the robbery? “Oh, excuse me, Mr. Bank Robber. Would you mind if I live blogged your bank robbery for all my Cabbage Patchsters to read?”
Honest to goodness, I don’t understand my mind sometimes most of the time. It goes a little topsy turvie over the possibility of an illegal marriage certificate; yet, in times of a crisis, it always remains calm no matter what situation I might find myself in. Like the time I found myself in the same urology waiting room as that shackled prisoner who was sitting with the two armed guards beside him. Everyone else was doing everything they could to avoid making eye contact with him but there I was trying to take a picture of him without his knowing.
Thankfully, Tim the Bank Robber turned out to be a regular customer. The fact that he was laughing hysterically at his own comment should have been my first indication that he wasn’t a serious bank robber. But how did I know? He could have been ‘the laughing’ bank robber for all I knew. Bank robbers have done stupider things than that, after all. One time, a nearby bank was robbed by a masked man wearing his pyjamas. His getaway vehicle was his ten speed bicycle. I kid you not.
Also, thankfully, I did accomplish what I set out to do – change my name – AND I managed to do it without being robbed. How cool is that?
P.S.: You can totally stop reading now or continue on because there are some valuable life lessons to be learned from my latest blundering. It’s completely up to you. I’m not here to pressure you. No, sirree.
P.S.S.: If you choose not to continue reading, you may be struck down buy bye by a bolt of lightning or something even worse. The fleas of a thousand camels may infect you and you’re yore your arms will be to two too short to scratch because that’s how life lessons work if you choose to ignore them. I read this in a chain letter once.
Important Life Lessons to be Learned from Linda’s Idiocy
- NEVER confuse ‘holdup’ with ‘hold up’ because they are entirely two different things. One may cause you to pee yourself from the shock of it while they other is merely an inconvenience; although, if you have to wait too long in line, you may pee yourself then too. Bad example. Let me try that again. One has to do with a bank robbery while the other means a delay or having to remain strong while holding up something. I blame the English language for this kind of confusion. So many damn words sound the same but mean different things. For example, to two too, they’re their there, by bye buy, your you’re yore. Come on, y’all know I’m right about this.
- NEVER get married by a minister who is a close personal friend of the groom’s family especially when that family is notorious for leaving out important details about things — like the minister being a bloody alcoholic, for instance.
- NEVER rob a bank while using a bicycle as a getaway vehicle. This should be self-explanatory but clearly the masked pyjama robber didn’t think his robbery all the way through. I mean, how far are you going to get on a ten speed bike weighted down by a book bag full of money? I am trying to save you twenty-five to life here.
- ALWAYS make sure that your marriage is legal. This ensures that your poor mother does not spend the rest of her life worrying about whether or not her one and only child is legally married (and *whisper* not living in sin).
- ALWAYS make sure that your bank account name is the same as your pay cheque name. After all, you have bills to pay, kitty litter to buy and new swearing colouring books to order off Amazon. I love Amazon. Amazon is the best.
- ALWAYS make sure that the sound is turned off on your camera phone before taking a picture of a shackled prisoner sitting in a urology waiting room. Trust me on this. Shackled prisoners have a tough image to adhere to. They don’t want anyone knowing that they are having issues with their pee instrument (especially a strange but incredibly calm woman trying to take their photo).
And finally,
Just sayin’.
Lol !!!! I was right there, next to you in that bank ! The minister who married us was a visiting Bishop from overseas who used my Dad’s celebrant licence (is that legal ?! I don’t think so!) Dad thought it was a bit dodgy too even though it was his idea ‘cos he wanted the Bishop’s signature on our certificate so to make sure we were legal (as in married legally) he and several other attending ministers also signed our certificate. We had a lot of them (legal marriage celebrant ministers that is) at our wedding. The Bishop had REALLY BAD BREATH – unfortunately for us we were forced to stand so close it nearly knocked us over!
Ha ha that’s a good story, too! What is up with these ministers anyway? And there should be some sort of rule that Bishops and ministers cannot have bad breath! Good grief, Charlie Brown. 🙂
I’m with you on that ! I still smell it when I think about it, and that was waaay back in 1973 🙁
I love the way your write. Great story.
Thank you, Eugenia. You have made my Saturday. 🙂
ROTFLMAO
My coworkers (two of whom are Mexican, one is Pakistani and the other one is from Colombia) have discussions about how effed the English language is all the time. They’re always asking me to explain this thing, that thing or that other thing because while they’ve all spoken English for a very long time (in one case, nearly as long as I’ve been alive) they STILL don’t understand it.
I love listening to their accents though..especially my Pakistani coworker. Sometimes she gets annoyed because I ask her to say cucumber multiple times in a row. Because she doesn’t say it “Kew-cum-ber”. It’s “Coo-cahm-burr” which is absolutely adorable.
Exactly! Our English language is definitely effed up, that’s for sure. When I went to a gift show in Ireland many years ago, some of my suppliers kept getting me to say words over and over again. They’d sit there chuckling away over my pronunciations. They said I pronounced ‘about’ as “a-boot” and ‘butter’ as ‘budder’ and so on. Where I live in Canada (the Ottawa Valley area), we have our own accent and expressions for different sayings such as ‘slippy’ for ‘slippery’ and ‘battry’ for ‘battery’. We get made fun of all the time.
Check out some of the way we say our words and some of our different expressions here: http://ogradys.ca/opeongo/ov_expressions.html
I have English friends who are like “Say y’all again!” because to them, my accent (which is a little Southern and a little bit California surfer dude which I find funny because I’ve never lived in California nor surfed nor am I a dude) is hilarious to them. And the farther away from home I get, the worse it becomes strangely enough.
I totally understand about being made fun of for the way you talk. Southerners have had people making fun of their accents pretty much since the beginning of time. And we’re pretty critical (or some of us are anyway) when an actor who is not a native Southerner tries to do the accent and gets it wrong. I watched a stage production of “Driving Miss Daisy” on PBS one time where Angela Lansbury played Miss Daisy. Now, no offense..she’s a great actress. But her accent was ATROCIOUS. Ugh. They should have hired the same vocal dialect coach who worked for Dolly Parton on her “Coat of Many Colors” TV movie because THEY got it right. My mom’s family is from the same area as Dolly is from originally, so I grew up hearing these voices, this accent, all my life. And that was one of the first things I noticed..they got it right. Like dead friggin on. 😀
OMG………….I was standing right there behind you in the bank line! I could HEAR that holdup………I nearly peed my pants from thinking about your taking him down with a PIECE OF PAPER!!!! You kILL me! Damn, I woke up George who sleeps all day because he works all night and he said “what in hades is so damned funny THIS time?” I said “Linda’ he just looked at me for a second and said “that woman with the carrot patch?” HE LISTENED TO ME! not very well granted as I never mentioned carrots but he remembered a VEGGIE! oh happy days! sorry, i got sidetracked.
Hilarious! 🙂
So good–I especially love the pie chart, which can be applied to what I’m doing versus what I’m thinking in any given scenario. I love the list of expressions posted above too–I remember once going into a buffet restaurant in Ohio and asking the cashier to point out the cutlery for me. She looked completely confused and said, “I don’t know that word.” When I said “knives and forks”, she exclaimed, “Oh, you mean the silverware.” But my silverware is silver, not plastic, and we only use it for special occasions…
Ha! I love that. Hold up – holdup. And if Tim the laughing bank customer/robber had said, “What’s the problem here?” he would have been kicking himself later.
That’s right and I wouldn’t have had a blog post out of it either ;). Thanks for dropping by the Cabbage Patch. 🙂
This was a fantastic read! Great way to start my Sunday morning! I completely agree with you on the picture thing – turn off the sound! I would take so many more pictures of crazy people on the subway if my phone didn’t make the sound. But alas, in South Korea it’s illegal to turn off the sound. I have heard that there is an app that will silence the sound….
Thank you for dropping by the Cabbage Patch and for your kind comments. I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that someone in South Korea is reading my blog. It truly is a small world after all. 🙂
Soon it will switch to Canada 🙂 not so far away then
My goodness, what an ordeal all because of a ‘name change’…. Too funny! Diane
Love these humorous adventures.
God bless you for loving my adventures and for dropping by the Cabbage Patch. Sometimes I hesitate before hitting the publish button because I think that people will think that I’ve truly lost my mind!
That’s the fun part!☺️
First of all, what the heck are you doing with that monkey? (I’m almost afraid to ask, but: curious.)
At my practice wedding (i.e. for first, failed, marriage), we are also sure our judge was drunk. He joined us in “holy headlock”. And no, I’m not kidding!
As for accents, I live in the South, but I don’t generally have an accent or a drawl. But I lay it on thick when someone says I don’t. Just for funsies. 🙂
As for your holdup…. glad you didn’t have to resort to violence with your marriage certificate!
Hilarious as always!!!!
Well, the monkey is deserving of his own post and hopefully I will get to it soon. To make a long story short, the monkey was in Dr. Who’s office when I first started working for him all those years ago so it seemed only fair to include him in my photo. While you can’t see it in the photo, the monkey is holding a really big needle behind his back. He’s a sneaky little devil.
Fingers crossed you don’t test his ire and get the needle suck in ya. 😉
HAHAHA You made my day! So I am easily had but it was hilarious! And yes I read to the end. Honestly.
I’m so glad that my post made your day! I measure the success of each day by whether or not I made at least one person smile or laugh and I am happy to know that my silliness had that effect on you. Thanks for dropping by the Cabbage Patch :).