Because Loot Lizards are nothing if not cheap, we had the cheapest account we could find, which was a business savings account. This meant that checks to anyone had to be laundered through the Treasurer's personal checking account. The cash would be withdrawn from the Loot Lizards account, trucked across town to be deposited into the personal account of the Treasurer, then a Xerox copy had to be made of the check and stapled to the corresponding withdrawal slip for the records. (We killed a lot of trees those first few years.) The Treasurers referred to this practice as "the float."
Every once in awhile, we'd have a problem with one financial entity or another. One weekend afternoon, it fell to Jerry to have to resolve an issue with eBroker. Jerry had mailed them a check drawn on his personal account, and had put the account name and number on the memo line, something which had always worked just fine. But eBroker had returned a form letter to him, saying they couldn't figure out what account it belonged to or that he wasn't allowed to put money into the account, or some such problem and to call an eBroker representative for more information.
The phone conversation with eBroker that ensued lives in Loot Lizard legend.
It began politely enough, with Jerry attempting to figure out what the problem was with the check. It soon heated up when it became apparent that the software used by the eBroker representatives displayed only the first name on the list of people allowed to access account information, and Jerry was most audibly not Andrea.
By the time Andrea actually got to her answering machine,
there were several messages from Heidi and Jerry getting progressively
warmer about needing to call the broker, with trenchant
diagnoses of exactly what might be ailing the representatives of said broker,
or what could be ailing them, if only they were a little closer geographically, getting more and more anatomically explicit with each message.
"Sir, I'm shouldn't be discussing this account with you. You're not Andrea Zastrow."Jerry argued with them for some considerable time, with repeated requests to check their records for authorized Loot Lizards and frequent admonitions that the conversation was being tape recorded. Eventually, someone at eBroker managed to deposit the same check correctly. Go figure.
"I just want to know what I have to do get this check deposited."
"Sir, I'm shouldn't be discussing this account with you. You're not Andrea Zastrow."
"Well, can you tell me what I'd do to get any check deposited to any account?"
"You put the account number on the memo line and fill out the deposit slip."
"But I did that and the check didn't get deposited."
"Sir, You are not Andrea Zastrow, so I cannot discuss this account with you"
"But.... I'm a signer on the account..... look up it"
"Sir, I cannot do that, you're not Andrea Zastrow"
"But I'm a trustee on the account!!!"
"Sir, you might be a trustee for this account, but I cannot give you that information since you are not Andrea Zastrow"
"But I already know that I'm a trustee on the account, I don't need you to tell me that!"
"Sir, this conversation is now being taped"
" I don't give a rat ass what's being taped, How the hell can I get $%^&&^% money into the account..... Can I at least ask if my check cleared?"
"Sir, You are not Andrea Zastrow, so I cannot discuss this account with you"
"But it's my check not Andrea Zastrow's check!"
Click......... And the eBroker representative hung up.