Who Was Stealing All the Bank Pens?

Also, I need Dale to explain my sump pump.

Recently I posted a picture of our beagle, Maverick, sleeping in the backyard while I edited my Matuszak manuscript. That sounds peaceful, but Maverick was on a leash because Maverick is, legally speaking, a bad boy.

That blue-and-yellow thing in my hand is the Lilly Pulitzer pen, the same stupid miracle instrument I have already discussed at a length no court would consider reasonable. The important thing here is that, because of the angle, it appears to be under some kind of restraint. Which is unfair. Maverick, unlike the pen, has earned restraints.

My friend Sheila noticed this and commented that it looked like “the pen is chained to the couch like they used to have at the bank,” before immediately accusing herself of being “Abe Lincoln years old.”

First of all, correct. Second of all, I have not stopped thinking about bank pens since. Because what the hell was going on there? At some point in American history, banks decided the public could not be trusted with pens. Not money. Not loans. Not cashier’s checks.

Pens.

A bank is the only place in America where someone will calmly discuss lending you $380,000 for a house while silently communicating, “But don’t get cute with this Bic, dirtbag.”

Bank pens were not placed on counters. They were placed into custody. Which raises the question: how much bank-pen theft was happening in this country?

Was there a wave of ballpoint crime we have refused to confront as a nation? Were men in Members Only jackets casing the lobby, pretending to ask about CD rates while planning to boost a medium-point blue from First National? At some point, a regional manager in 1982 slammed his fist on a conference table and said, “Enough! Chain them all down!”

And everyone just nodded?

Which is insane, because banks are already built around suspicion: vaults, alarms, cameras, silent buttons under desks, tinted windows, and men named Craig who say, “Let me print that for you,” then disappear for twelve minutes.

And still, apparently, the pen was the vulnerability. Also, have you been inside a bank lately?

Not an ATM. Not an app.

A bank.

A full physical bank. With carpet. Desks. Fake plants. A bowl of lollipops no one has touched since the Obama administration.

I went into one recently because we were going on vacation and I needed more cash than the ATM would give me. More importantly, I needed smaller bills, because I was not emotionally prepared to tip a man twenty dollars every time he opened a door. Even though Raul, to be clear, deserved better than being turned into a budgeting problem by a man in flip-flops.

So I walked into the bank.

Maybe banks don’t even chain pens down anymore. I don’t know. The employees looked so startled by my presence that I didn’t want to make things worse by wandering over to the little desk and checking whether the Bic was still under house arrest.

It felt like I had stepped out of a DeLorean holding traveler’s checks. You could almost hear the employees thinking, “Oh my God. One of them came inside.”

And yet they keep building banks.

Everywhere.

New intersection? Bank.

Old restaurant closed? Bank.

Empty lot next to a mattress store? Bank, obviously, because apparently every American suburb is legally required to have three places nobody enters: a bank, a mattress store, and a vitamin shop that feels like a front for elk testosterone.

I don’t understand this. I already have an app, direct deposit¹, twelve passwords, and a security question I answered in 2009 with the confidence of a man who thought cargo shorts were formalwear. Another bank is not solving my problem.

What I need is a building where I can walk in and say, “Can someone please explain what the fuck a sump pump is?”

Because I don’t know.

I know I have one. That sentence, however, is the limit of my knowledge.

There is a hole in my basement with machinery in it, and everyone has agreed, through years of Midwestern silence, that I am supposed to understand its purpose. I don’t. But I do know it involves water, electricity, and financial ruin, which I believe was also the original tagline for Waterworld.

A sump pump is one of those homeowner things you are expected to understand the second you own a house. Nobody teaches you. Nobody sits you down and says, “Here is the basement hole that prevents indoor lakefront property most of the time, unless it suddenly decides not to, at which point everyone will pretend this was somehow your responsibility.”

They just hand you the keys and hope shame fills in the gaps. So no, I do not need another bank. I need Dale’s. That’s the store.

Just Dale’s.

Dale’s would not have an app, a rewards program, or a mission statement. It would have a counter, coffee, and a man with forearms who can tell me whether the thing in my basement is supposed to make that sound.

Dale is sixty-two, has owned three trucks, and can identify a problem by listening to it from the driveway. He knows which noises matter and has never described anything as “user-friendly.” He does not need my password.

You walk in and explain the problem.

“My sump pump made a noise.”

Dale nods once.

“What kind of noise?”

“A bad one.”

“They all sound bad.”

“Should I be worried?”

“You got rain comin’?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should know.”

And he’s right. Of course he’s right. Dale is always right.

This is the kind of institution America needs. Not another glass box where four employees sit around guarding a chained pen. I need a place where a man can tell me:

“That’s your garbage disposal.”

“That’s not mold. That’s Wisconsin.”

“Your deck has two summers left, but don’t host graduation on it.”

“No, you don’t need a new furnace. You need to replace the filter, which I can tell from here you haven’t done since Brett Favre was still complicated in a fun way.”

“Stop touching that.”

That last one alone would save American homeowners billions.

The problem with adulthood is not that nobody helps you. It’s that everyone assumes you already know which kind of help you need.

At some point, without ceremony, you are expected to understand escrow, water pressure, tire tread, sump pumps, Roth IRAs, and why the dishwasher smells like a lake. No one teaches you. They just call you a homeowner and let the basement start making noises.

So no, I don’t need another bank, another lobby, or another frosted-glass office where the pen is guarded like it knows who killed Hoffa.

Build Dale’s. Put him behind a counter. Give him coffee. Let him judge me. Chain the pen if you must.

I don’t need another place to hold my money. I need one that can listen to a 10-second video from my basement and tell me whether I’m hearing a normal house noise or the opening notes of financial ruin.

Next week: Tim Brown joins the podcast. Darla has thoughts, but refuses to share them until treat negotiations resume.

1. In the spirit of transparency, I used to have direct deposit.