You Can Take That to the Bank...But You’re Better Off Using Your Mattress

TD Bank’s registered logo is “America's Most Convenient Bank.” You’ve surely seen one of its numerous television ads featuring Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa. But I’ve been banking with TD Bank since it took over Commerce Bank, and I contend that TD Bank is perhaps America’s Least Convenient bank. For instance:

On Monday, I queued up in one of my local branch's four drive-thru lanes to deposit a check. After stuffing the check and deposit slip into the container and sending it to the teller, I sat and waited for more than ten minutes as five customers who had entered their lane and began their transaction after me received service and drove away while I continued to wait.

Inconvenient.

The very next day, I drove to the same branch to obtain some temporary checks because I was still awaiting the arrival of my new ones. The customer-service representative informed me that they did not have any temporary checks and that I would have to go to another branch to get them.

Inconvenient!

These are inconveniences occurring just this week. There’s also the $4.00 “maintenance fee” that TD Bank charged when my savings-account balance fell below $250.00. I didn’t even know this fee existed...and they charged me for it four consecutive months. I accrued 75 measly cents in interest on my savings in 2010...yet TD Bank took $16 for “maintaining” my account! What did that maintenance require? Leaning over to shift cheeks while sitting on their fat asses staring at the sun and waiting for 5:00 so they could run to Prospector’s and down a martini with my money? Okay, so I have Web access to my account, which could have alerted me earlier to this hidden fee—but I rarely used my savings account in 2010 and seldom had need to check it. Bottom line:

In...con...ven...ient.

And if I had a nickel for every time a TD Bank ATM was out of service when I needed to use it, I’d have just enough money to open another TD Bank savings account and lose $4 a month in maintenance fees...

Quite inconvenient.

Further making its customers’ lives more difficult, TD Bank used to allot to account holders two money orders a year without charge. A TD Bank money order now costs an account holder $4.

Extremely inconvenient!

TD Bank’s advertising campaign further boasts about its “legendary service” (as seen in small print in the ad above). I would very much like Regis and/or Kelly to explain what’s so "legendary” about it. Banking, in one form or another, has existed since antiquity. Certainly, the banking families of Renaissance Italy introduced practices that are still in use today, and Alexander Hamilton proved to be one of the greatest banking minds in modern history, organizing the first bank of our fledgling nation. But TD Bank as an operating unit dates back only to October 2008—hardly a history with which to achieve “legendary” service. Now, had TD Bank lent substantial sums to Charles V so he could finance his wars against the Valois kings of France, or perhaps had it provided coin-counting machines and safety-deposit boxes to the Pilgrims, then a claim of “legendary service” might be justified. But TD Bank reviving the tradition of offering free lollipops at its counter doesn’t cut it. Finance a crusade or two... Provide home-equity loans in gold ducats... Offer a 700-year CD so you’ll have a viable past by the time it matures... At least give out free quill & inkwells instead of those cheap pens... Something to legitimize your claim...

Most convenient?

Perhaps TD Bank should drop Regis and Kelly in favor of the Church Lady so as to make more obvious that its claim is a goof.

Besides, Dana Carvey needs the work...



Postscript

The checks I ordered more than three weeks ago still have not arrived.

Ludicrously inconvenient!

Post-postscript

As of October 2012, TD Bank no longer sells postage stamps through its ATMs.

OFF-THE-SCALE INCONVENIENT!

Post-post-postscript

May 31, 2014: Once again, the ATM is out of order, necessitating that I stand in a long line for counter service while staring at the AMERICA'S MOST CONVENIENT BANK slogan—the banking world's version of the Warren Report—all-too-proudly mounted on the wall behind the tellers.

INCONVENIENCE INCARNATE!

Post-post-post-postscript

July 30, 2014: Again, the ATM is out of order. Standing next in line, one teller occupied and the other teller busy doing apparently nothing, a customer-service employee, seeing me growing visibly frustrated, walks across the bank floor, goes behind the counter, and asks the unoccupied teller whether he informed me that his line is closed. The teller responds affirmatively despite never having even looked up to see me standing at the head of the line about ten feet away, let alone never uttering a single word to me. A brazen and shameless lie that would have Alexander Hamilton spinning in his urn—made without even attempting to conceal his fallacious claim from my ears.

INCONVENIENCE-TURNED-IMPUDENT DISHONESTY!

Post-post-post-post-postscript

October 14, 2014: The TD Bank in Lake Worth, Florida, has a line of customers almost out the door, yet only a single teller is working the counter. Making matters worse, at least for me, of the fifteen (15!) slots of transaction slips available at the front-door counter, exactly none (0!) of them contain withdrawal slips. Apparently, TD Bank doesn’t want you to have access to your money.

TEETH-GNASHINGLY INCONVENIENT!

Post-post-post-post-post-postscript

December 26, 2014: As the fifth car in the drive-thru this afternoon, more than ten minutes passed without a single transaction being completed by the unconcerned teller, who instead found it more important to wave at, and inquire about, the crying infant in the lead vehicle. Finally, I pulled out of line, parked, and conducted my banking inside.

When the drive-thru is slower than going inside, it’s time to look for another bank...

Post-post-post-post-post-post-postscript

October 5, 2015: Brought $174.15 of coins to TD Bank to deposit in their coin counter. (I painstakingly hand-counted every coin last evening, logging each one with a tick mark, by denomination, on a white-lined sheet of paper, because more than a few reports exist of banks deliberately miscalibrating their machines so that they can shortchange you and bilk you out of even more of your money.) Sure enough, the TD Bank machine produced a total of $167.41—more than $6 short, putting this far beyond the realm of an innocent margin of error. The bank manager didn’t count on me producing the hand-logged inventory of coins and, after ten minutes of awkward fumfering on her part, my account was finally credited the full amount. However, I still did not receive the $1.99 bonus for guessing within $2.00 of the pre-count total (I input the exact amount, of course).

KISS MY ASS, REGIS AND KELLI!

Post-post-post-post-post-post-post-postscript

November 28, 2015: More than two weeks after closing out my safety-deposit box (going into my local branch, removing my property, and signing the forms to officially terminate the account), I received a late notice for safety-deposit box renewal. TD Bank is demanding $43.00 in 2016 fees for a deposit box I no longer rent. To add insult to buffoonery, TD Bank is still sending my mail to my old address, which I updated in its system more than a month ago.

PUCKER UP AGAIN, REGIS AND KELLI!

Post-etc-script

January 13, 2016: My debit card—which is “good thru” April 2016, has virtually no wear on it, and has never before given me a problem either at an ATM or accessing one in a locked TD Bank lobby—failed to unlock the door of my local branch tonight, I had to sit in the dark parking lot until another customer entered the lobby, so I could stand outside and wait until he exited. If you think that was vexing enough—and it was—understand that the $1.5 billion Powerball drawing is tonight—and with ticket sales ending, by local law, at 10:00, I was fighting the clock to get cash. Sure, I could have gone to a non-TD Bank ATM, but the galling surcharges tacked on by both the host bank and good ol’ TD would have amounted to anywhere from $6 to $8. After paying nearly half a billion dollars in federal, state, and local taxes on my Powerball jackpot winnings, there’d hardly been anything left thanks to TD’s grubby little hands...

I’D LIKE TO KICK YOU IN THE POWERBALL, TD BANK!

Super-post-etc-script

November 12, 2020: I just discovered that TD Bank has hiked its annual fee for a safety-deposit box from $45 to $70—a 64% increase!

FLAT-OUT HIGHWAY ROBBERY, TD BANK!

Double-super-post-etc-script

August 22, 2022: Faced with the potential of being stuck behind a long line of cars at TD Bank’s drive-thru during the lunch hour, I pulled myself out of bed early for its opening at 8:30 am. Arriving at that time, I was second in line and figured to have an expeditious deposit of my check. Once again, TD Bank proved itself anything but America’s most convenient bank. The customer ahead of me took nearly ten minutes to complete his transaction. I’m not entirely sure who was responsible for this absurd manipulation of valuable time as the clock ticked toward the start of the workday and my need to be home to log on in a timely manner. I could not make out the majority of the words as the teller spoke to the customer, but it seemed as if the customer had erred or miscalculated in some way, for the teller returned paperwork to the customer via the extending tray. More minutes went by, and my entirely justified and expletive-laden complaining rose to a level that, but for the car radio, might have been detected by both parties ahead of me as it seeped out of my half-open window. Some putz apparently trying to refinance his mortgage in the drive-thru lane is the height of arrogance and a real screw you to fellow customers.

YOU’RE A NIGHTMARE NO MATTER WHAT TIME OF DAY IT IS, TD BANK!

(TD Bank ad copyright TD Bank; Church Lady photo copyright NBC.)

Keep Your Eye on the Ballgame

Call it the "Miracle at the New Meadowlands." Or, if you're a New York Giants fan, call it "The Nightmare Before Christmas." I'll just call it the worst mistake of my football-viewing career.

Disgusted by the Philadelphia Eagles' heartless play in the most important game of the season, I switched channels in resignation to the Colts-Jaguars game after the Giants had upped the score to 31-10. With 8:17 to go in the game, Philadelphia was surely defeated. Sadly, I sat down at my computer as the Colts and Jaguars slugged it out in their contest, the television over my shoulder. Listening more to the game than watching it, my occasional glances at the action weren't enough to alert me to the monumental comeback slowly progressing on the update ticker at the bottom of the screen. Not until many precious and historic moments had passed did I notice that the Eagles had somehow risen from the dead and tied the Giants, 31-31. Disbelieving, I leaped from my chair and grabbed the remote, furiously pressing the "Last" button as a spate of expletives escaped my lips. A near-eternity elapsed as the screen changed from the Colts-Jaguars game to black to the Eagles game...but there was DeSean Jackson racing across midfield and on his way to a stunning, game-ending, punt-return touchdown—a freshly minted spectacular moment in NFL history.

It was right about this time that my body took on a quick series of animated forms.*

















*An incidental ascending vibraphone note may have accompanied each transformation—details are difficult to recall after such a life-altering moment.

I learned my lesson the hard way: Never change the channel. Never break away from a highly anticipated and critical sports contest no matter how lopsided the score. Not even if it's 62-3. With twelve seconds to go. And the starting quarterback has bilateral Joe Theismann leg fractures. And Ron Jaworski and John Gruden are over-enunciating so much that smoke is billowing from the television. And Charlie Batch is squatting in the bush, getting stronger while I get weaker and the walls move in a little tighter.

Never change the channel. Absolutely goddamn right.

(Photo of DeSean Jackson copyright Associated Press; animated photos copyright Warner Brothers.)

Phillies Could Beat(le) All Comers in 2011

With the acquisition of Roy Oswalt, the Philadelphia Phillies now have baseball’s equivalent of what Mick Jagger called The Beatles in their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech: “the four-headed monster,” for pitching rotations such as the Phillies will have for 2011 come along very rarely. So, as I have neither heard nor read in any media outlet, I am hereby coining Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt the “Phab Four.”

Any why not?

Halladay, ever the artist on the mound, cranks out no-hits almost as frequently as Paul McCartney wrote hits. Cliff Lee possesses the same slender physique as late-sixties Lennon. Cole Hamels, now somewhat lost in the glare but still a vital craftsman, parallels dark horse George Harrison, and Roy Oswalt, perhaps the least picturesque of the quad yet undeniably instrumental to its success, fits Ringo’s throne.

If that makes Charlie Manuel Fifth Beatle George Martin, then so be it—although folksy Charlie trying to effect a London accent could well cause his mouth to explode.

And, as other teams in this town have had their own songs, such as “Phillies Fever” and “Here Come the (1-2-3-4-5) Sixers,” the 2011 Phab Four surely need their own:
 
Here come the top Doc, he come grooving it quickly
He got joo-joo fastball, he earn Cy Young dollars
He got no-hitters down to his knee
Gotta be a 20-game winner, he just throw what he please
 
Lee wear no pinstripe, he shun Texas baseball
He got mustard finger, he love Philly pretzel
He say "I know you, you know me"
One thing I can tell you is I wanted back in Philly
Come together right now...and win the World Series
 
Cole bag run production, he got runners picked off
He got the Braves’ number, he one Atlanta cracker
He got cleats down below his knee
Hold you in the bullpen he don’t need no relief
Come together right now...and win the World Series
 
Low ERA-poster, this Roy got Oswalt surname
Just like Muddy Waters, he from Mississippi
He say “One and two and three out is me”
Ain’t no one gonna rob Roy of victory
Come together right now...and win the World Series

(Phillies photos copyright Getty Images; With the Beatles photo copyright Capitol Records.)    

Every Picture Doesn't Tell the Right Story, Don't It?

So Monday Night Football is about to start: New York Jets (9-2) at New England Patriots (9-2), in a battle for first place in the AFC. As a network always does, ESPN is showing scenic night shots of Boston, specifically Quincy Market. However, the Patriots play in Foxborough, and the approximate 22-mile distance between Foxboro and Boston may well be the longest distance between a football stadium and its associated city (possibly equaled only by Arlington/Dallas).

Twenty-two miles is not an insignificant distance, especially considering Boston's ubiquitous traffic problems. And at that remove, Foxborough residents certainly can't be considered Bostonians. In fact, Foxborough is actually closer to Providence, Rhode Island than it is to Boston.

So why not show exterior nights shots of Foxborough during the pregame introduction? After all, the franchise left Boston proper—and even abandoned its "Boston Patriots" name—in 1971, so Foxborough has earned that right. How about a shot of the Foxborough Comfort Inn bathed in its lawn spotlights? One of the jewels of the Foxborough Skyline, the Comfort Inn offers free breakfast and a fitness room equipped with a Stairmaster and a wall clock.

Or the Paine School, built in 1795, either apparently to teach color-blind colonial youngsters how to enter and exit structures or, according to its colloquial spelling, as Massachusetts' first S&M grotto.

And what about Extra Space Storage, one of Foxborough's finest self-storage facilities? Stuffed with sentimental garbage that local pack rats can't throw away, this oversized closet serves as the town's silent nerve center, likely housing aged heirlooms and hand-me-downs from Foxborough's bygone days. Who knows what treasures from its sleepy suburban past lay in climate-controlled darkness?

So, get on the ball and do away with the visual clichés, football networks. There's a hell of a lot more to the hometown team than the postcard-mimicking money shot.

The Blow Must Go On

As was reported in The Smoking Gun on November 29, a South Carolina couple were involved in a domestic disturbance on Thanksgiving day when the woman, while performing oral sex on her boyfriend, stopped in mid-act to answer her cell phone. As can be seen in the official sheriff's report below, she lied to her boyfriend that the caller was a woman, later admitting that the caller was a man, which infuriated her boyfriend—as if halting her blowjob to take a phone call from her girlfriend wasn't infuriating enough. The boyfriend then allegedly slapped her, at which point she called 911. The investigating police officer examined the woman's face but found no evidence of physical harm. After refusing to give the officer a statement, the woman left the scene, and no further action was taken.


As you may be aware, South Carolina is home to many kooky laws. And as still extant in the South Carolina Code of Laws as of the end of the state legislature's 2009 session, under Title 16: Crimes and Offenses:

SECTION 16-15-120. Buggery.

Whoever shall commit the abominable crime of buggery, whether with mankind or with beast, shall, on conviction, be guilty of felony and shall be imprisoned in the Penitentiary for five years or shall pay a fine of not less than five hundred dollars, or both, at the discretion of the court.

"Buggery," of course, is the archaic term for what we commonly refer to as "sodomy," which, in legal matters, encompasses a range of sexual acts, including oral sex.

Now it's lunacy to still have a puritanical law such as this on the books, even if virtually never enforced. But it's beyond lunacy not to have a law on the books criminalizing the halting of a blowjob for any purpose other than to cause ejaculation via a different manner. Let us be plain: once a person is involved in administering the act of oral sex, the recipient cannot be left hanging. Let the phone ring. Allow dinner to burn. Disregard the doorbell. Ignore the fire. South Carolina legislators must realize that—regardless of whether oral sex is outlawed in their state—once "head" is underway, the mission must be completed. Even under the aegis of such prudish laws, failing to complete a blowjob is far more heinous a crime than engaging in the act altogether.

Perhaps this man did slap his girlfriend—which, of course, would be criminal under any circumstances. But police found no evidence of such, and the accuser refused to file a statement, which not only makes her allegation dubious, but renders the matter moot. It is she who is guilty in this case—guilty of stopping a blowjob to answer a phone. Sadly, there is no weight with which the law can come down on this unconscionable monster...save for perhaps banning her from South Carolina Gamecocks events. Shame on this woman.

Therefore, I propose that the following amendment be added to the South Carolina Code of Laws—and, indeed, to the Code of Laws of each state:

SECTION 16-15-120a. Fellatus Interruptus.

Whoever shall commit the abominable crime of fellatus interruptus, whether to tend to another matter or to cease for reason other than to change position or stimulatory method, shall, on conviction, be guilty of felony and shall be imprisoned in the Penitentiary for five years or shall pay a fine of not less than five hundred dollars, or both, at the discretion of the court. The offender shall further be required to wear a scarlet "CT" at all times that the offender be known publicly as a cocktease. So do the right thing and finish what you started.

Postscript

It is my hope that this incident—as have many other actual criminal occurrences—becomes the basis for a future Law & Order episode. Sure, fellatus interruptus probably would constitute only a Class E felony in more liberal-minded New York City, but any chance to see Assistant DA Connie Rubirosa reenacting the crime in court for the benefit of the jury is sure to be a ratings-grabber!

In fact, I think I'm gonna write the episode myself.

Maybe even story-board it, too...

(Photo of Law & Order copyright NBC.)

The Young Victoria's Secret: Michael Palin Trumps Emily Blunt

So we watched The Young Victoria last night, the underwhelming 2009 period piece starring Emily Blunt as the United Kingdom's iconic 19th-century queen. Sure, she made a beautiful Victoria—far more attractive than the real Victoria—but for my money, Blunt cannot hold the proverbial candle to Michael Palin in portraying England's longest-reigning monarch.

In Monty Python's Flying Circus Episode 41, "Michael Ellis," Michael Palin portrays a spirited, if culturally confused, Queen Victoria (seen here with her late husband, Albert, the Prince Consort). In fairness to Emily Blunt, Palin's Victoria is certainly not the Queen of The Young Victoria's youth, yet it is a more honest, realistic, and geopolitically consequential version. Palin plays her with the masculine verve that so defined the stuffy, sexless age we call Victorian. More importantly, Palin bravely infuses his queen with Germanic tendencies that epitomize Victoria's tangled cultural lineage, lest we forget that she sprang from the Teutonic House of Hanover and herself became progenitor to many future European rulers, including Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II, Russia's Tsar Nicholas II, and, of course, Great Britain's George V—second cousins who would feud catastrophically in the First World War. When Palin's Victoria slips seamlessly from English into German, we are confronted with the hard truth that England and Germany—destined to rival for control of Europe—are deeply tied by blood, which will, over the coming years, muddle sympathies and affect both the course of poetry and politics. None of this can be gleaned from Blunt's pristinely Anglican Victoria. Frankly, one can hardly envision Blunt's Victoria curdling her nose at the recent soiling of the Victorian Poetry Reading Hall carpet and uttering Was ist das schreckliche Gepong? Es schmecke wie ein Scheisshaus! with any conviction.

Like all of the Pythons, Palin thrived playing female characters. His Victoria is Prussian and assertive without sacrificing English matronly compassion. When Palin's Victoria declares ant-themed poetry verboten, it is to be replaced with the more feminine themes of "skylarks, daffodils, nightingales, and light brigades." I'd be hard-pressed to believe Blunt's Victoria had she delivered such a royal decree!

Perhaps this is not a fair comparison. Sure, Emily Blunt is a Golden Globe–winning actress—but Michael Palin and the Pythons rank among the finest actors in the annals of television and film. It is no wonder that I also prefer Graham Chapman's "Erizabeth" (Monty Python Episode 29, "The Money Programme") to even the supremely talented Cate Blanchett's virgin queen. Blanchett portrays Elizabeth with a near-perfect balance of virginal sex appeal and icy integrity, yet it is Chapman who transcends the role, maintaining remarkable dignity whilst Erizabeth's closest advisors sit atop motorized bicycles and everyone, including Her Majesty, speaks Japanese pidgin English. This is not an Elizabeth whose reign is predictably defined by the Armada, but who defines herself by changing with the anachronous times and embracing the alarmingly premature industrialization of her kingdom.

Yes, Emily Blunt and Cate Blanchett are gifted and gorgeous jewels in Hollywood's realm, but I'll take Michael Palin and the late Graham Chapman as England's on-screen queens—for without a Python in drag...we are not amused. God bless you alles!

Some Particulars About the General

Perhaps he's not as ubiquitous as the Geigo gecko or cavemen, but "the General" from General Auto Insurance is beginning to show up all over the television dial. With his promise of quick quotes, low rates, and a low monthly payment, the General is aiming to take command of the auto-insurance battlefield.

But the General has several telltale flaws that betray him as unfit for command and keep me from volunteering for his outfit:

» A five-star general, such as the general in question, is a General of the Army. Only Dwight Eisenhower, George C. Marshall, Omar Bradley, Hap Arnold, and Douglas MacArthur attained this rarefied rank as active soldiers. A General of the Army wouldn't be casually referred to as "the General," which fails to delineate him from even a measly brigadier.

» More significantly, the General's rank insignia on his helmet is incorrect. A five-star general's rank is denoted not by five stars in a row, but by a "pentagon" of five stars, as can be seen here and on the shoulder of Eisenhower, Bradley, and Marshall below...which leads me to believe that the General is, at most, a four-star general who stuck a fifth star on his helmet without the approval of Congress—congressional approval being the only way a fifth star can be conferred.

» And the General's drooping biker moustache is an egregious breach of military regulation. Sure, a high-ranking officer gets leeway in the realm of facial hair, but this moustache won't pass muster even for a General of the Army, and the Commander-in-Chief should bust this Hells Angels wannabe down to three stars for its flagrancy. One cannot lead by example if one is not setting the example...even in peacetime auto insurance.

I'll support our troops all day long...but I can't support this trooper.

Now, there is an admiral for The Admiral Insurance Group, based in Wales, but I don't know enough about 18th-century Royal Navy dress to put my trust in this guy. And isn't the parrot really an indication of piracy?
For more on potential violation of military regulations,, see the Mount Drinkmore entry of January 4, 2007, "A Promoter Without a Promotion" via the blog archive or keyword military.

(Photo of the General copyright General Auto Insurance; photo of the admiral copyright The Admiral Group.)