Monday, August 3, 2009

Typical Day

In reality, it wasn’t really all that typical. It wasn’t raining, for one thing…always a treat, given the fact that I do believe we’ve seen more rain this summer than all the water from The Perfect Storm, Waterworld and Noah’s Ark put together.

I received a few phone calls, returned a few more and checked my email account, twitter account, voicemail and tried desperately to decipher my scribbled note from last night which read:

“IO- DON’ IntMak spora bndeo re? Run 3, 6, 8. F! ! ! !”

The series of explanation points shows the pressing immediacy of this piece of information, which I’ve concluded has something to do with InternalMakeover (my site), and something I either shouldn’t do (DON’ = DON’T), or has something do to with a man named Don and the pen just got away from me there. The “spora bndeo” part sounds like a fungus disease I wouldn’t want to catch...or possibly a very stylish, fashionable form of headgear from Italy. I don’t “run” anywhere, so that’s self-explanatory (not) and the crossed-out numbers could simply be me forgetting what number month we’re in, finally arriving at August. The “F!!!” is probably an expletive, but I suppose it could just as easily stand for Fantastic!!! Or, Fight!!! Or, possibly my friend Fran…whose call I may have forgotten to return.

I spent an interminable ten minutes on this coded message before tossing it on my desk and heading out the door. I went to the post office. I stopped at a physician’s office to drop off a complimentary copy of a published interview he’d done and then I headed over to the bank.

The time on my dash read 3:28 and the lobby looked deserted, but I saw cars on the drive-through, so I got in line. Honestly, I haven’t done the drive through in years…and I’d never done the one that’s situated one car lane away from the teller sitting in the window.

I had no clue what to do. I hear this disembodied voice say “TAKE THE TUBE.”

Me: “’Scuse me? Hello? What?”

That’s when I realize that there’s a guy sitting in a window of the bank on the other side of the humongous SUV/truck that’s to the left of me and thereby blocking my view of said Amsterdam Peep Show Dancer bank teller-guy.

Tube? A-ha! To the left of me is a vertically placed clear, plastic tube sitting in some kind of pipe-contraption that runs up, up and away. I gingerly TAKE THE TUBE. I’m trying to figure out how to open it and neither the top, nor the bottom will unscrew or pop off. The disembodied voice says “BLACK TRAP DOOR IN THE MIDDLE.”

Ah. Got it! (So little to make me happy) Then, I realize I haven’t signed the front of the deposit slip, so I start digging through my console for a pen. The first thing I grab (and try to click open) turns out to be my tire pressure gauge:

Okay, that’s not gonna cut it. The only other possible writing instrument in my console looked like this:

I clearly suspected it was indeed, a pen. Trying to figure out how it opened was another production. I’m aware that the teller is waiting…and there’s at least two cars waiting behind me.

I’m pulling on the lizard’s head…and finally pull the piece off his tail and sign the slip.

You may quote me on this…if you dare.

JD at I Do Things said...

I'm not going to be happy until you decode that secret message. The exclamation points! It's important! In other news, I want a lizard pen.

kathryn said...

Working on the cryptic note-it's taped to the wall in front of me. Hopefully, it'll somehow magically make sense. Maybe I should put take it w/me when I drive....
I know, that freakin' pen. I'm surprised it still worked-has to be 7-8 years old & sitting in a hot/cold car. I do believe they also sold snakes and....snails, for some reason, which I thought wud be hard to hold when u write.
Right?

Straight Guy said...

I haven't spoken to a bank teller in years. But I hate to break it to you that the "tubes" are nothing new. Three decades ago, my mom used them to deposit my dad's paychecks and magically DumDum lollipops would appear in the vacuum tube's return.

Any chance that "coded" message was on a cocktail napkin? If so, that's a clue.

Susan F said...

I wouldn't have known what to do either!

kathryn said...

SG: Aw. I didn't get any magic DumDum in MY tube. (Gee, how often do you hear THAT in a sentence?)
If I'd written it on a cocktail napkin, I wud've thrown it away immediately. (I mean, no ph# on it, right?) I figured out the first part says "I don't intend to make--" Still working on the rest.

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