However, this month I am going to write about how BB&T bank (henceforth known as the Grinch) managed to send my holiday spirit into a major skid.

At 2 PM on Christmas Eve, the mail person dropped off some junk mail and an envelope from the Grinch. That was the normal time for the monthly statement to arrive so I was surprised to see instead a letter informing me that an adjustment had been made to my account due to a missing deposit made almost 2 weeks prior. The "adjustment" practically drained that particular account and had me headed to the local branch on East Poinsett in Greer, S.C. with the "missing deposit" receipt firmly in hand. I arrived at the bank with visions of showing the receipt dancing in my head, after which I would return home with the situation corrected to continue with my holiday with only a slight amount of aggravation for the interruption.

Rudolph could not have been more upset by the treatment of the other reindeer as I was of the attitude displayed by the entire staff of that branch of the bank. I had preceded the visit with a phone call telling them that I had a receipt and that when I arrived I expected to have an explanation and to have the problem corrected. Told that there was nothing that could be done, I informed the person on the phone that I would be the irate bald-headed geezer storming through the door in 15 minutes.

I came through the entrance and marched purposely to the counter and actually talked to the person that had been on the phone. I was then told, "I can’t help you! You will have to go see "so and so" (the name escapes me). "So and so" claimed she had no idea what I was talking about and that Jason or Josh (at this time, I wasn’t in the name-remembering mode) would have to handle the issue.

Arriving at Jason or Josh’s desk, he pointed at the first person I had talked with and said: "She’ll take care of it. It’s not my job." That person saw that I was being directed back to her and called across the entire bank: "I don’t know nothing. He is yours." Well, Jason or Josh just sat at his desk and hemmed and hawed and stuttered and I don’t think completed a single sentence while presenting a completely confused expression. Rosemary (I began to think that I needed to remember names), seated at the next desk intervened and offered to look into the situation. Rosemary listened while I rather hotly again explained that my account had been depleted due to an internal error of the bank and that I expected the error to be corrected before I left the facility.

At this point the most unbelievable thing happened as I again showed the receipt for the deposit that had been printed by the bank. Rosemary told me, "That receipt doesn’t mean a thing. Our records show that the deposit is missing and you will have to prove that you made a deposit by contacting all the people who you claim had written a check and were in the alleged deposit. You will have to prove by presenting the check number and the amount and date and …..(I again forget all the things that I was going to have to provide to prove that I had made a deposit)."

It may be my personal perception, but all of the people in the building were now looking down their noses at me as if I was attempting some sort of fraud. In fact, without using that particular word, that is what I believed they were trying to say. Demanding to speak to a superior, I was connected by phone to Teresa, who after hearing the entire story again, in a very cold voice told me: "Unless you bring us proof of checks deposited, and since the receipt is of no value, we are not going to replace the money into your account. And as far as we are concerned it was never made and the money does not exist."

The manager of the bank, Mark, exited from his office at this point due to the raised volume of my voice and the fact that I told Teresa, Rosemary and Jason or Josh, that I was about at the point of going berserk right there in front of them and God and everyone. The manager’s total input or support throughout the entire confrontation (it is now a confrontation instead of a conversation) was this: "This is a federal institution and you can’t go berserk in a federal institution. I am calling federal agents to have you removed if you don’t leave and accept that there was no deposit and that there is nothing that we will do for you. Goodbye."

Rosemary and Teresa did tell me that although they would be on vacation the following week they would leave a note to have it investigated further on Monday after Christmas.

I left the building feeling like I had been violated in the most horrible way and was totally confused by the fact that an official bank receipt written on bank paper had absolutely no value if the bank chose to ignore it.

I spent the entire Christmas weekend in a semi-aggravated mode and probably spoiled the holidays for everyone around me with my sullen attitude and having only one subject to talk about, if I talked at all.

As it turns out, I got a call on Monday morning from Kathy Reynolds representing the Grinch. I use her full name because she was the only person who seemed really concerned that maybe I wasn’t committing fraud and acted like she wanted to help. I was actually surprised that information had been left for someone to follow up on. I suspect that Kathy is the low person on the totem pole who is assigned the job of dealing with irate bald-headed geezers. I again relayed the info to Kathy and hung up thinking that although I had probably lost the money, at least she understood my frustrations.

To my total surprise, I received a call in a few hours from Kathy to tell me that they had found the deposit in the bottom of a bag used to transfer documents from one location to another. She informed me that the deposit would be reflected in my account later that day or the next day. Kathy offered her personal apology that I had been troubled. I was so relieved that the money was located that I actually thanked her and wished her a happy holiday. After hanging up, I thought that I should have taken that opportunity to demand some compensation for my ruined holiday and for the attitude displayed by the staff at the East Poinsett branch of the Grinch Bank.

I lived in Japan for 3 years and my wife is Japanese, and the treatment by the staff at the bank was especially irritating to her. She told me that if something like that had happened in her native country, the entire staff of the bank, including the president of the entire cooperation, would have contacted me with apologies and actually made it a point to come to my home with gifts to beg our forgiveness. Although Kathy had offered her apology and said that she had never heard of anything of this type ever happening, I was still left with a very empty feeling that a Federal institution could make up new rules to cover a mistake on their part. I will never have any faith in a receipt again.

Kathy Reynolds actually took it upon herself to come to my home later in the day and bring a letter of apology and a BB&T legal folder with their logo on it as a gift and apology. After I requested it, she said she wasn’t able to put several hundred dollars in my account as further compensation.

All in all, I guess things turned out all right and no harm was done. The bank told me that they were looking at changing procedures to ensure something like this shouldn’t occur again. At the time, I was wondering what my subject was going to be for my column during the off-season, but I will not go so far as to thank them for providing me with a topic to write about.

I started writing this column to complain about my ruined holiday, but two things happened that changed my perspective. What happened to me is just one of those things that take place and was of no consequence at all in the grand scheme of things.

The first thing was the report of the death of the 12-year-old nephew of Gary Rowe. Rowe has the Raceworks.com Internet site and covers a lot of drag racing in the southeast. On Christmas day, while at a family gathering, a stray bullet fired by an idiot who was apparently playing with his new Christmas rifle stuck the 12-year-old nephew, Charlie, in his heart. Young Charlie died in front of his family and the incident has forever tainted the joy that Christmas Day should bring to the family. Please keep this family in your thoughts as they struggle with such a tragedy.

The second thing that made my problems seem so insignificant was the tsunami in Asia which left millions of victims in its wake. Please do everything within your ability to contribute to the recovery of the remaining families in that area.