Welcome, Comrades, to Soviet America

OK, so forget about my being a Democrat, and in favor of government helping the poor. First of all, the poor were too damn lazy to get out and vote, so the GOP won huge anyway, both nationally and here in Florida. So if the poor don't care... And then today I had an experience with our banking system that made me want to find Rand Paul and support his campaign -- especially now that he's pandering to pro Israel groups... My mother in law got a bonus reparation payment from the German government. They didn't give out rings in the Holocaust, as we learned in "The Hangover," but if your survive and live long enough, different programs emerge through Survivors who know about these things, and my mother in law got some money. She decided to gift it to the Ds. The check from Germany was direct deposited into her account at Bank of Amerika (k is intentional -- I'm making Soviet references), and she wanted to get the funds out right away. She has to keep her balance below a certain level so that Medicaid eligibility for my father in law isn't jeopardized, so she asked Wifey to simply withdraw the money as cash, and have me gift it to the Ds. Wifey waited her usual 45 minutes at B of A, which has the worst customer service ever. Even though they know her there, for her monthly visits to do her mother's bank business, each time they examine her signature and driver's license like her name was Wifey Atta. No -- bad analogy -- Mohammed Atta had a much easier time of it navigating (bad word) our country before he led the 9/11 attacks... Anyway, I met Wifey and took the cash, lest she get jacked by one of the Norwegians who jack Pinecrest homemakers as they drive around town in their Lexus SUVs...The bank was short of $100 bills, so I walked out of B of A with an envelope stuffed comically full -- like some idiot weed dealer from a Cheech and Chong movie. So now, all I needed to do was walk down the Sunniland Center to SunTrust, where the Ds have accounts, and deposit the cash. Not so fast! First, I asked the not nice Jamaican teller for their account numbers. She told me, even though I gave her my ID and the Ds birthdates, that they "no longer give numbers." Alvaro at the Brickell branch does, I protested, but the Jamaican wasn't having none of it! Worse, hers was the only teller line open, and a group of about 10 angry folks were behind me. Jamaican lady would have just let them stew -- I said maybe I ought to take this up with a manager. I called D1, and she pulled over and gave me her account number. D2 was in a UF prof meeting. I called my "personal banker" who no longer exists, but luckily longtime assistant Rosa answered -- from Coral Gables, no longer Brickell, and she told me the new policy about not giving out account numbers. "Rosa -- you've known me for 25 years! Remember I always used to joke that if anyone wanted to DEPOSIT money in my account -- let them!!!???" She laughed and broke the high rules of SunTrust -- she gave me D2's account number. So I got back in line with the right numbers and my absurdly bulging wad. Ha. Now they had opened two other lines, and a young Latina took my deposits, and then told me it "would have to be reported." Whatever. By now the system had beaten me -- any logic about trying to be a regular citizen and being able to deposit money from a grandmother to grandkids was gone. I meekly said "I thought you reported deposits of more than $10K." Yes, she said, that was the IRS rule, but the SUNTRUST rule was that since both deposits, though to different customers, exceeded $10K COMBINED, they needed to report. So I told them what D1 does for a living, that D2 is a student, and that I deal weed. I actually said that, but she had my lawyer business card, and actually laughed. Then she asked "Do you daughters have plans for the money?" I knew she was asking because SunTrust is trolling for brokerage clients, but instead I said "Yes. They're each buying mail order husbands -- the older one is buying a Moldovan, and the younger an Indonesian. Imagine what our grandkids will look like." So it is with our fine country. Criminals steal billions, drug dealers make millions, and I'm treated like one of them simply being the conduit for a grandchild gift. It would have been easier if my mother in law simply gave the Ds rings -- though not rings from the Holocaust...