Wednesday, June 01, 2005
World Bank
Andromeda's mortgage and checking account are with the World Bank, so, frankly, we were a little worried about Paul Wolfowitz' first day as President, which was today. This morning we went down to our local branch to use the World ATM.
Wolfowitz was standing there amid a bunch of balloons colored like Earth globes, greeting the customers. He had a long, sharp, toothy smile that reminded us of a wolf. Hunched next to him, in the shadows, was his buddy Richard Perle. Perle was eating cake, even though that was supposed to be for the customers. He wasn't smiling, but he did seem to like the cake.
We walked up to Wolfowitz and shook his hand. He said, "Welcome to the World Bank, did you know we reduced our checking account fees?" He didn't wait to find out if we knew that or not, because he was just asking different questions like that to everyone who came in. Like "Have you thought about a second mortgage?" and "Did you know we have zero percent car loans for qualified applicants?" He asked us about the checking account fees and pulled us along with the hand we were shaking, and pushed us with his other hand on our shoulder. We wanted to talk about the Iraq War, but he was pushing us on so fast, we only got a chance to say, "Nice hair!" and then we were face-to-face with Perle. Perle wasn't expecting us to stand there in front of him, cause we were just supposed to keep going on in to use the world banking services and see if there was any world cake left, but we stopped and stood there in front of him, watching him finish his cake beneath a large fake rhododendron. It was so dark we hadn't noticed it at first, but after our eyes adjusted we could see he had a lot of black pens with chains on them sticking out of his pocket. His eyes glittered when he saw us looking at his pocket, then he made a sudden animal noise and dashed out from the rhododendron. We went to the World ATM machine.
The machine confiscated our card and spit out a piece of paper saying the World Bank had suspended our card due to suspicions we had weapons of mass destruction. So we stood in the line to talk to a teller and explain we didn't have any WMD any more so could we have our card back or at least get some cash because the anthrax salemen on our street wouldn't accept credit cards. Ahead of us in line was Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Iraqi Prime Minister. He said he had to go to the bathroom cause he had been waiting in line for hours. "Will you hold my place?" he asked. We told him we didn't think so. "You *are* just the transition Prime Minister," we said. We explained about our ATM card and he said the same thing happened to him, even though Iraq just got inspected! So we felt sorry for him and said we would hold his place if we could have his cake. We ate his cake and when he came back from the bathroom, we said we never met him before and we didn't know anything about any cake. But we got tired of standing in line, so we just snagged a huge stack of those deposit envelopes and a balloon and walked out. When we got home, we had a nice letter from the bank with a new ATM card with Wolfowitz' picture on it. That is some very nice hair.
Wolfowitz was standing there amid a bunch of balloons colored like Earth globes, greeting the customers. He had a long, sharp, toothy smile that reminded us of a wolf. Hunched next to him, in the shadows, was his buddy Richard Perle. Perle was eating cake, even though that was supposed to be for the customers. He wasn't smiling, but he did seem to like the cake.
We walked up to Wolfowitz and shook his hand. He said, "Welcome to the World Bank, did you know we reduced our checking account fees?" He didn't wait to find out if we knew that or not, because he was just asking different questions like that to everyone who came in. Like "Have you thought about a second mortgage?" and "Did you know we have zero percent car loans for qualified applicants?" He asked us about the checking account fees and pulled us along with the hand we were shaking, and pushed us with his other hand on our shoulder. We wanted to talk about the Iraq War, but he was pushing us on so fast, we only got a chance to say, "Nice hair!" and then we were face-to-face with Perle. Perle wasn't expecting us to stand there in front of him, cause we were just supposed to keep going on in to use the world banking services and see if there was any world cake left, but we stopped and stood there in front of him, watching him finish his cake beneath a large fake rhododendron. It was so dark we hadn't noticed it at first, but after our eyes adjusted we could see he had a lot of black pens with chains on them sticking out of his pocket. His eyes glittered when he saw us looking at his pocket, then he made a sudden animal noise and dashed out from the rhododendron. We went to the World ATM machine.
The machine confiscated our card and spit out a piece of paper saying the World Bank had suspended our card due to suspicions we had weapons of mass destruction. So we stood in the line to talk to a teller and explain we didn't have any WMD any more so could we have our card back or at least get some cash because the anthrax salemen on our street wouldn't accept credit cards. Ahead of us in line was Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Iraqi Prime Minister. He said he had to go to the bathroom cause he had been waiting in line for hours. "Will you hold my place?" he asked. We told him we didn't think so. "You *are* just the transition Prime Minister," we said. We explained about our ATM card and he said the same thing happened to him, even though Iraq just got inspected! So we felt sorry for him and said we would hold his place if we could have his cake. We ate his cake and when he came back from the bathroom, we said we never met him before and we didn't know anything about any cake. But we got tired of standing in line, so we just snagged a huge stack of those deposit envelopes and a balloon and walked out. When we got home, we had a nice letter from the bank with a new ATM card with Wolfowitz' picture on it. That is some very nice hair.
