MONEY WASHING
I have a washing machine where I am carefully laundering all my £100 notes so that international terrorists or grey-haired grannies holding up notices supporting Gaza can benefit from my endeavours and pension.
Of course I am willing to do this while going through a series of numerical and verbal contortions at least at graduate level. A clear memory is essential**,** even if you did write them down, because you need to recall where you wrote them down — and did you use a code for safety? Not easy when you are told to use an obscure password in order to prevent fraud!
Quite a good theme for an improvisation in my Dramatherapy group — or, more focussed, in a social skills drama group!
During the last month I have been excluded from both my bank accounts, one after the other — not for ‘suspicious activity’ (a favourite banking term), nor for identified fraud, but for no stated reason of any description. And once excluded, believe me, it takes many hours**,** if not days, to gain re-entry to what is essentially your money. You cannot pay anyone or know your balance**;** you are prevented from accessing what belongs to you. The first bank needed to know ID, password and biometric approval, (yes I do know what it means because I got Latin O Level in the olden days!). You have to hold your camera very steady and follow the instructions of turning your head right and then left. The first instruction is all very well, but when you are elderly, holding steady is not an option. And since you must not wear glasses, reading the instructions is impossible. So getting a friend to help presents further issues - it requires a certain degree of intimacy as the person needs to stand behind you, breathing down your neck while they manoeuvre your camera in to the right position. So you cannot ask a passing stranger or the gardener or the Amazon deliverer, and have to wait until a member of your family happens to drop in. I am remembering that the Dramatherapy group allows for intimacy in an acceptable way, because you are in role. Please don’t remind me of all the ’no touch’ policies of nursery’s and primary schools.
Also the security questions are very intrusive - asking about my parents when they are both dead, my first pets when I did not have any and school details when I had been very unhappy - soon it will be the colour of my first pair of knickers.
The second bank wanted everything that the first one demanded plus more! I had to provide ID, password, passcode, twice, and then mobile phone alert - twice, and then bio-metrics - fortunately without having to turn my head so I managed it alone. It was extremely stressful and left me feeling that I was not only checked because I might be the victim of a fraud, but that I might actually be the fraudster! Control, control, control.
I am feeling nostalgic for the savings account in the Post Office, the shoe box under the bed, and the bright pink piggy bank. And my much thumbed copy, covered in brown paper, of ‘Caesar’s Gallic Wars’.