Banking on my husband

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend Edition on Nov. 4, 2011

“We had better cut back on our expenses,” my husband said the other day.  I agreed with him completely, which in itself is astonishing, considering we have been married over 25 years…to each other…consecutively.  (It is important to add qualifiers nowadays, as some couples like to sum up their experience.)

If you are as suspicious as I am of people who claim to have perfect marriages, I would also be circumspect about how quickly two polar opposites could agree.  We agree readily and completely because each of us knows it’s the other person’s fault.

I have cost a good bit this semester, with tuition and books for the course to pursue a provisional teaching license through EducateVA.

I am sure he is the one creating the extra expenditures, (not that I would want it any other way).  Just ask Mailman Mike.  He brings so many packages that he may as well swap that postal uniform for a padded red suit.  But get this: my husband has been ordering books and used electronics equipment to make a teaching lab for our children.  What would I do without this man and his interests?

Don’t think his interests wane because they seem to change: he simply cycles through them like seasonal clothing.  Every topic requires more books and gadgets and equipment.  Whatever intrigues him, he pursues wholeheartedly.  I’m just thankful his interest is not other women.

I did have a bit of a scare in that department a couple of summers ago, though.  My husband had gone to India for a couple of weeks.  I was attending to long-neglected tasks after my first school year of working outside the home.  Balancing the checkbook was like an abandoned child.  I squeezed my eyes and hoped it would turn out okay.  At least, no one had been hurt, as far as I knew.

I kept revisiting the numbers.  Weird.  There had been a single cash withdrawal of $ 600 one Friday evening.  I know I have a bad memory, but had my husband lavished me with jewelry or a computer that I selfishly and absent-mindedly could not recall?  Noooo. 

I found the debit on our account online, but could bring up no details or images.  I called my husband in India.  They are 10.5 hours ahead, but we needed to talk. “No,” he said.  He had not withdrawn $600 a couple of months ago. 

“You’re sure, right?” I ask him, with voice faltering, because I don’t want to look like a moron running to the bank to find out that, oh, incidentally, your husband has had a joint account here with someone else for the past five years.  Don’t worry; she takes care of all the financial details on that account too, and they were just running a bit low.  And have you seen that adorable new baby?

I know you’re going to say I’m being silly.  What was going on back then?  Was it when the Governor of South Carolina was on a supposed hike?  Was it when news was breaking out about The Terminator’s spawn?  Was it when John Edwards was trying to distance himself from a new little being?  Or was it during the deterioration of “Jon & Kate plus Eight” - a show I have never seen, but been accosted by its associated headlines nonetheless when online checking email or in line checking out groceries?

I got myself to the bank, pronto.  After some searching, the customer service agent apologized.  The mystery had a simple explanation - disturbingly simple, actually. 

One Friday evening, at a bank branch elsewhere in the county, a man with a name very similar to my husband’s went through the drive-through to make a withdrawal from his own, legitimate account.  I won’t tell you what that man’s name is, because it is not his fault that the teller had earwax plugging his ears, misinterpreted what he said, and stupidly did not check ID while doling out half a dozen Ben Franklins and debiting our account.

The solution took all of five minutes.  The bank went into Similar-Sounding Man’s account, dipped its hands in and pulled out the $ 600 he had long ago spent and plopped it back into our account.  It’s weird, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for SSM, and hoped he had had that buffer built in.  Perhaps he takes better care of his finances than I do.  At the bank, the numbers seem so abstract.  It doesn’t even feel like money then.  In the store is when those numbers have meaning and become real. 

The solution was quick and painless.  I was somewhat annoyed with this faceless teller (the bank had data to know who it was) and with all the stupid scenarios that had played out in my mind.  Mostly, though, I was relieved by the simplicity of the explanation. 

I could be happy again.  I’m not so sure if the same could be said of Similar-Sounding Man or for that teller.