22.12.06

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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1 Comments:

At 12/26/2006 11:35 am , Blogger avalon said...

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

 

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