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calimacI have it at last: a check representing the relatively small amount of money that my late mother had in her checking account, to now be deposited in the much larger investment account where we've been putting everything else.
I kept this account open for a while as a place to deposit refund checks (insurance, memberships, etc.) made out to her name, because according to the lawyer I couldn't legally deposit them in the investment account, which is now in my name as trustee. (Although, when I did take one small such check along with a batch of payables-to-trustee into the investment broker's office, they took it without a murmur, which astonished the lawyer when I told her.)
I went in a couple of weeks ago to Mammoth Bank's little branch office to close the account, and spent well over an hour sitting there while an extremely green behind the ears junior banker tried to figure out the notarized declaration, with an original copy of the death certificate attached, that the lawyer had prepared for me. The look on my lawyer's face, when I later told her that this guy had spent an hour staring at it and repeatedly phoning the bank's legal department for help, was a look you don't want to see on a lawyer's face.
Eventually I gave up and told them to phone me when they had finished figuring it out. Two days later, they did - I had to come back and sign their notarized document, which meant I had to come back when their notary was in. This was just before I left on one of my trips, so that wasn't going to happen very soon. It still took some time afterwards - she's out to lunch, or I can't find her; and the fact that her first name was Yetty only emphasized her elusiveness ("In the darkest Himalayas / where the snow is piled in layers / And the view is reminiscent of some snowy black spaghetti") - but eventually her existence and mine coincided, the papers were signed, and my thumbprint was taken, something I've never had a notary do to me before.
Then I had to sit in the lobby's sole lounge chair for another half hour while some dark behind-the-scenes ritual was performed with the documents, during which other bankers would come by and solicitously ask, "Are you being helped?" to which I'd reply things like, "You tell me," before aforesaid junior banker finally brought out the check. I thanked him, and said the process had probably been even more frustrating for him than it had been for me.
I kept this account open for a while as a place to deposit refund checks (insurance, memberships, etc.) made out to her name, because according to the lawyer I couldn't legally deposit them in the investment account, which is now in my name as trustee. (Although, when I did take one small such check along with a batch of payables-to-trustee into the investment broker's office, they took it without a murmur, which astonished the lawyer when I told her.)
I went in a couple of weeks ago to Mammoth Bank's little branch office to close the account, and spent well over an hour sitting there while an extremely green behind the ears junior banker tried to figure out the notarized declaration, with an original copy of the death certificate attached, that the lawyer had prepared for me. The look on my lawyer's face, when I later told her that this guy had spent an hour staring at it and repeatedly phoning the bank's legal department for help, was a look you don't want to see on a lawyer's face.
Eventually I gave up and told them to phone me when they had finished figuring it out. Two days later, they did - I had to come back and sign their notarized document, which meant I had to come back when their notary was in. This was just before I left on one of my trips, so that wasn't going to happen very soon. It still took some time afterwards - she's out to lunch, or I can't find her; and the fact that her first name was Yetty only emphasized her elusiveness ("In the darkest Himalayas / where the snow is piled in layers / And the view is reminiscent of some snowy black spaghetti") - but eventually her existence and mine coincided, the papers were signed, and my thumbprint was taken, something I've never had a notary do to me before.
Then I had to sit in the lobby's sole lounge chair for another half hour while some dark behind-the-scenes ritual was performed with the documents, during which other bankers would come by and solicitously ask, "Are you being helped?" to which I'd reply things like, "You tell me," before aforesaid junior banker finally brought out the check. I thanked him, and said the process had probably been even more frustrating for him than it had been for me.
