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Tym Blogs Too!

The random web scribblings of a person with too many thoughts and too little time

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Day in, day out

Now that I'm gainfully unemployed (or it certainly feels that way, as I'm tying up loose ends on various freelance projects), I have plenty of time for errands.

Like going to the bank in an attempt to put some money into a fixed deposit account, only to find out after much back-and-forth sitcom-esque wrangling with a no doubt well-meaning but ineffectual bank officer that they didn't have one that met my specifications.

The conversation went something like this:
ME (waving a flyer that we got in the mail): Hi, do you still have these fixed deposit rates?
Well-meaning but ineffectual bank officer (WIBO): Oh, no more. That one expired 16 December.
ME: Okay, so what are your fixed deposit rates now?
WIBO: How much are you planning to deposit?
ME: [names a small sum of money]
WIBO (placing a rate card before me): Oh, if you put it in for one year, you get this Rather Impressive Amount of Interest.
ME: So I only have to put it in for one year?
WIBO: Yes, but it's a savers account, so you must also pay a monthly premium of $180. It's to help you to save.
ME: So I have to put the lump sum in for one year, and pay the monthly $180 premium to get this Rather Impressive Amount of Interest?
WIBO: Yes.
ME (pointing to a different column on the rate card): What about these other Even More Impressive Interest Rates, for less than one year?
WIBO: [convoluted reply that I can't follow. Never mind.]
ME (going back to the 1-year interest rate): So I put in the money for one year, that's all, and I can take it out after one year.
WIBO: With the monthly $180 premium. It's to help you to save ...
ME: Yes, with the $180 premium.
WIBO: ... which you have to pay for 10 years.
ME: 10 years?
WIBO: You have to pay the premium for 10 years. It's our special savers account.
ME: And the lump sum is also stuck for 10 years??
WIBO: No, you can take out the lump sum after 1 year.
ME: But I have to pay the $180 premium for 10 years.
WIBO: Yes.
ME: So it's an account with a 10-year commitment.
WIBO: But you can take out the lump sum after 1 year.
ME: But I have to pay the $180 premium for 10 years.
WIBO: Yes.
ME: That's not what I'm looking for. I don't even know what I'll be doing in 5 years, don't even say 10 years.
WIBO: [smiles ineffectually]
ME: That's all you have?
WIBO: Yes.
ME: Bye.
How does one not mention a 10-year commitment right off the bat?

Yesterday's errand was much more enjoyable. I went to pick up the Xmas cakes we'd ordered from Baked Ideas aka my friend Karen's new operation. I know it's too late for Xmas, but everyone should seriously go order her Xmas fruitcakes right now. I couldn't resist and had an Xmas cupcake for tea yesterday afternoon, and it was amazing: soft, moist cake chock-full of fruit, yet not so frightfully sweet as to immediately kill the rest of your appetite.

Now this fruitcake I could eat all the way through the Xmas season and then some --- unlike say the extremely passé log cakes that I keep trying to avoid at Xmas parties.

Today's errand will be grocery shopping and writing Xmas-greeting emails to everyone I've failed to contact in the last few months ...

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posted by Tym at 11:33 AM

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1 Comments

At 12/27/2006 12:35 AM Blogger avalon said...

What WIBO was trying to sell you was an endowment insurance policy.

 

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