"The Wells Fargo Wagon is a-coming down the street, oh please let it be for me."*

            I cried at the bank today.

            I didn’t mean to and I was trying to hold it together, but Wells Fargo had made me an emotional wreck and RUINED MY LIFE and I couldn’t help it.

            The day before Thanksgiving, they called to tell me that “suspicious activity” had been reported on my debit card number and they were going to close it down on Friday, November 25^th. I had no time to get another card before heading to Omaha and the replacement card they claimed they sent me on the 7^th still hadn’t arrived. So basically, despite the fact that they knew about this “suspicious activity” as long ago as November 7^th, they waited SIXTEEN DAYS to let me know about it.

            So I went in there today about 20 minutes before closing and I sat for 15 minutes while a young, stupid-looking banker tried to find a card for me to use. While I waited, I listened to a seemingly friendly but somewhat bonkers security guard talk to himself.

            He said stuff like, “Oh no! I’ve got to lock up those doors in 3 minutes. I have to make an announcement. Boy, am I hungry. It sure is gray outside. I wonder how much longer these customers are going to be here. I’ve got so much to do. I sure could use a nap. Why is he parking across the street?” It took me a minute to realize he was having a full-on conversation with himself. But at least I had something to look at while I waited for the dumb banker to come back.

            After dumb banker activated the card, he explained that it wouldn’t allow me to purchase anything, but it would allow me to get cash from an ATM. Great. How convenient!

            I asked him if he could help me figure out when I would receive the new card or how much this would complicate my life. I asked if it would be a new card number and necessitate me changing every automatic payment I have (which is MANY). He assured me that, oh yes, I was in for a lot of work in the upcoming weeks. That’s when I first wanted to cry. But I kept it together and acted like a bitch instead. My “thank you” to dumb banker was very cold.

            So I dramatically put on my coat, sighing loudly so dumb banker would know how upset I was, and I headed for the exit.

            This particular Wells Fargo has a strange exit that leads you through a hallway with a sort-of Wells Fargo museum display inside. It has models of original Wells Fargo buildings and Wells Fargo wagons and all kinds of crazy crap. Behind that is the stairway to the garage. I started to walk down, but saw a sign at the bottom telling me that an alarm was in effect on that floor and I couldn’t go out the way I came in. 

Museum-type crap.

            Another banker came up behind me.

            “I’m parked down there,” I said.

            “Oh, well you can take the elevators down to the garage level,” said the woman. Her nametag said Mayra.

            “Fine,” I snapped. I was really mad at Wells Fargo.

            So I took the elevator down, but it skipped my floor (presumably because that damn alarm was on) and went down another level.

            I tried to take some stairs, but they took me all the way back to the top. I turned in another direction and ran into a fire exit. I walked back down to the garage. I couldn’t go up or down. I saw another staircase and walked over to it. I walked up and opened the first door. It led into a corridor that was strewn with boxes and looked like a storage unit. I closed the door and went up another set of stairs. I was once again back where I started on the second level. And so I started crying.

            I was so frustrated and I was starting to think I was going to have to live inside the stairwell at the bank. It would be like that book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, where the kids live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But so much less fun and lots more lonely. 

 Rad book.

            I walked down the top flight of stairs crying and thinking about how much I hate everyone at Wells Fargo and what kind of evil things I was going to figure out how to say to their customer service department when a door opened on the middle level.

            The security guard from the lobby stuck his head in and looked at me quizzically.

            “I can’t figure out how to get out of here!” I cried. In front of him. Like I really wanted him to KNOW I was crying.

            “There are some stairs off the main lobby you could have taken.”

            “The lady told me not to!” I wailed.

            “Come on, it’s this way!” He took me down the corridor with all the boxes. “I’m going to have a talk with Mayra. She can’t keep sending customers down in the elevator. You get trapped in the garage.”

            “She said there was an alarm on,” I hiccupped. I’d stopped crying like a little baby, but I was still really upset.

            “Well, Fred! Open up the gate. Someone needs to get out!” He yelled to a garage security guard.

            “Thank you so much for helping me,” I said.

            “Well, I’ve been working since midnight last night. I covered someone else’s shift and I’m so tired I could fall down right now.”

            “I’m really sorry about that,” I replied, but he wasn’t listening. He was walking off in the garage, resuming his conversation with himself.

            I put on sunglasses to cover my red, cry baby eyes and drove out of the garage. I parked immediately on a side street and called Wells Fargo and gave the unfortunate customer service representative who answered my call the worst conversation of her day. MWAH HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

            But I’m still really mad.

*"The Wells Fargo Wagon" by Meredith Wilson from The Music Man.