Story by Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
Being the self-proclaimed Master Procrastinator is not a title that I am particularly proud of, but self-deprecation helps to keep me from crying or getting a bigger head. I don’t claim to be brilliant, or funny necessarily, but in my mind, I’m just a goober.
Being called a goober is not generally considered to be offensive. It’s more of a playful way of describing someone who is silly, goofy, or acts a bit foolish. Most of my foolishness is not meant to be mean-spirited. It is mostly a way for me to cope with anything I have done that is idiotic or stupid, rather than bang my head repeatedly against the wall.
Call me a goober; it’s much nicer than calling me dumb. I don’t consider myself dumb despite the fact that I can admit that I often do stupid stuff.
We moved from California (proof that I am not stupid) five and a half years ago. When I searched for a local bank, I discovered that not only is there no Wells Fargo Branch in Sapulpa, but there is no Wells Fargo Bank in Oklahoma.
My retirement money was set up for direct deposit, so I just kept my California bank. Besides, I had just gotten a huge amount of checks from Wells Fargo. I kept a close eye on my retirement deposits and just wrote checks for my Sapulpa bank account every month. It wasn’t that hard to do, and I liked going to the bank every month; the tellers in Spirit Bank are sooo nice.
I figured I would eventually transfer the direct deposits to my local bank and whattya know, I got them done over the last couple of weeks. I’m not very computer savvy, and I wasn’t sure how to get this done because I thought I had to know passwords and stuff.
My wife Carlene is the brains in this relationship, and she volunteered to help make it happen. I keep thinking about that Facebook meme of the 5-year-old little girl yelling into the telephone, “C’mon Grampa, it’s not that hard!!!” Yeah, she could’ve been talking to me.
Anyway, with Carlene’s help, we got it done. I got confirmation from one deposit in the form of a letter letting me know where it was directed.
I still had to get it done with Social Security, and that one had to be done in person. If you have ever had to get something like this done in the state of California, you might understand my anguish.
A visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in California is an all-day task. You stand in line to take a number and go sit down and wait for your number to be called. You can see about twenty windows, only three of which are open, while you see forty clerks elsewhere in plain sight working on other things. They eventually get to you within the next four or five hours.
Well, the Social Security office in Tulsa was not that bad, but we did have to wait about an hour (which felt like two hours to me), mostly because I saw a lot more windows with the shades down than ones calling numbers.
It was okay, though, and when I got to the window, I showed the clerk the confirmation letter I received from the other completed transaction. I was afraid that I would mess up somehow, so he took the information from the letter. Maybe if he had known what a goober I am, he would’ve looked closer.
The clerk was a great guy, and I left smiling. That wasn’t as bad as I had expected.
The next morning, I got a call from my bank telling me that my account information was missing the first four numbers. I looked at the letter again and noticed that it said in parentheses (last four). Oops, I totally missed it, and the SSA clerk didn’t notice it either.
So we had to drive back to the Social Security office again. Fears of having to wait a long time disappeared when I was able to jump line to the same clerk, and he fixed it in about 30 seconds. This clerk was indeed the BEST.
It’s all done now, and I only have to wait until the direct deposits get deposited correctly, which I have every confidence they will.
Five and a half years may sound like a long time to procrastinate, but it is not even close to my record. I told you I was a goober…
It doesn’t have to be this hard…
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