By Guinn Sweet | sweettalk@mineralwellsindex.com

I am experiencing some of the most aggravating and exasperating events of my long, illustrious (?) life! I am struggling with bank changing/electronic bill paying.

Doesn’t sound strenuous to you? Didn’t to me either, but Colon somehow saw a dark cloud on my easy bill-paying-horizon, and it turned into the storm he predicted without the help of any of the famous “Weathermen of Television,” who bring our daily weather conditions to our living rooms! It is becoming a long story, but I will try to shorten it, in favor of not losing my temper and control once more in the telling.

As most of you know, last year we moved to Fairfield, south of Corsicana. We had maintained a long-standing relationship with our bank in Mineral Wells, and we saw no reason to change, just because we had moved. After all, the majority of our usual monthly bills were being paid electronically by City National Bank of Mineral Wells. We were thrown just a bit off-balance by their becoming First Financial Bank, but since the personnel remained largely the same with the same friendly faces and voices, we saw no need to consider a local Fairfield bank with strange people at the helm. For special needs, we were exposed, somewhat, to the Community National Bank in Fairfield (check cashing, etc.) and ultimately, it just became evident that we should opt for convenience over bank loyalty, and we began the process of change.

The preliminary need was to notify all our “creditors” of the change. We did this about six weeks in advance, a bit more for our Social Security deposits. We filed forms with each element of the activity, advising of the six weeks before the actual change; we called and/or wrote to each of our utility companies and insurance companies, advising them of the necessary forms and stuff to facilitate the change for them and us. Notification from each of them that our notices, forms, etc., were in good order, were returned to us in a prompt manner … except from one of them!

That one is today’s object of my above-noted adjectival discomfort (translated: ANGER). Just today, I received the second “late notice,” with attendant charges, from that one who “just didn’t get it” from one of those creditors. The following is an excerpt from that @#%^&**++<>&^%: (Please do not attempt translation!)

“Unfortunately, we are unable to enroll your 'thorn in the side account' in the AutoPay service, you can enroll online by visiting ‘www.knowsnothing about how to deal with simpleprocesses.dumb’.”

Now, my question is, if they could do it for the past few years, what has happened to prevent them from continuing, using a different bank?  

I feel another change is called for, but not for another bank; both banks involved in this situation have handled their part of the problem with grace and generosity. I won’t mention the name of the “bad guys, idiots, know-nothings, unpleasant-to-deal-with” in question. I will tell you a bit of the conversation that was inspired by a telephone call by me to the culprit.

I advised them that I would not continue to do business with them, that if there was a balance left which they considered unpaid, that it would remain unpaid until doomsday and that, in spite of what my granddaddy had advised when I was a kid (never leave a debt unpaid when you die), that they would have to come after it after I was dead in order to be paid – and I didn’t believe that any one with their attitude could get past the Pearly Gates to reach me! (I have already asked for forgiveness for that speech, spoken in anger.)

Is this, in any form, a punishable crime? If it turns out to be so, my next column may come from the prison computer. Can you handle that, Mr. Editor?