You Forgot Your Keys

Since I don't work much at the comic store anymore I don't have many fun store stories. Instead I have bank adventure stories. Here's one from yesterday. (Friday)

This "self important" woman comes into the branch, talking on her cell phone the whole time. In her other hand, you know, the one not holding the phone up to her ear, she has a lanyard. The lanyard is full of those key tags you get at stores when you become a "member" of their various shopping clubs, and has what looks like a couple of car keys, a car remote control for locking and unlocking the doors, and some other generic metal keys. She also has in that hand her wallet.

Walking up to the teller window she does her banking, clearly on such an important call that she can barely tear herself away from the conversation enough to do the banking she came in to do. She sets the handful of keys down so that she can quickly get the check & deposit slip out and toss it to the bank teller and then put the phone back on her ear. The teller completes the transaction, unable to really communicate with this woman because she's on that all-important phone call. The teller hands the woman her cash back and receipt and the woman quickly nods and exits. The teller takes the next couple people, and after a few transactions someone points out that on the customer side of the teller window is this wad of keys and key tags on a lanyard. The teller grabs it from that customer and tosses it behind him.

We closed the branch a couple of hours later and I see this lanyard full of junk, asking whose it is. The teller who tossed it back there said, "it belongs to that woman who wouldn't get off of the phone ." I asked who she was, and he replied that he didn't know her, and that he didn't think he'd be able to pick her transaction out of the stack of work so we could figure out who she was. I looked more closely at the contents of the lanyard and could not find anything with a name on it. But I was figuring that once this woman figured out she'd lost these keys somewhere she'd be pretty mad. On top of that, that branch closes at 2 pm - which is still pretty early.

One of the key tags on the lanyard was for Borders Books, which is right next door to the branch. I send a teller over to see if Borders can give us any information on who belongs to the keys so we can try to contact her. They have a name and email. We look up the name and find her in our customer database. We call the work number listed, only to find that she no longer works there. So the teller calls the woman's home number and leaves a message to let her know that we have the keys and we're taking them up to the other branch 6 blocks away, since it's open until 5 pm.

I have no idea if this woman ever came by to claim the keys from the other branch. But I bet if she didn't she'll come in all angry on Monday to claim them at the branch where she forgot them. Probably blaming us.


Oh, and here's a good one! This happened earlier this week, Tuesday or Wednesday, I don't remember which anymore. A woman comes into the bank and walks up to one of the banker cubicles, asking the banker if she can ask him a question. He says, "sure, have a seat," and down she sits. She digs into her pocket and pulls out a wrinkled piece of paper that resembles a dollar bill, and shows the amount as $1,000,000. Yes, that's right, a Million Dollars. She asks the banker if it's any good. He makes a face, saying something like, "where did you find this?" The woman replies that she saw it blowing around outside and grabbed it. I am sure she was hoping that she hit the jackpot. After all, why wouldn't a $1,000,000 bill blowing in the summer breeze outside a bank be real? Banks are filled with these, right???

Needless to say, the paper wasn't real currency. The banker flips it over and on the other side it lists reasons why people should vote for a local politician running for office. He hands it back and informs the woman that she may as well take it back outside and toss it into the trash. She looked disapointed and quickly left.