Not as I Do

Boys and girls observe as Rhys shows us how NOT to act on a coin operated ride.


Kids please do not try this at home!


This being Thursday, dad came up for our usual round of lunch and grocery shopping. Today he came up a little early to sort out the Wells Fargo mess. After over 2 hours at the local branch I am happy to report that it has been resolved! We ended up having to speak with a whole gaggle of people. First it was a personal banker at the branch who took a little while before she could grasp the reason we were in there in the first place. She then phoned the online customer support dept., put me on with someone who after a space of time began to talk to me in a very patronizing way. He then asked me to hold for his supervisor. As I held on, the seconds ticking away I suddenly sensed dead air. I couldn’t believe it! He hung up on me.

Since our original banker left to take another call, I flagged down the guy at the next desk. Luckily he got right on it. We spoke with another agent who seemed a thousand times brighter. She confirmed my suspicion that when dad opened up the saving account in February, (the agent who opened the account accidentally input dad’s name with mom’s ssn), the computer sensed a glitch and automatically froze and closed the account, thus canceling the bill payments that were scheduled. Up until this point everyone I spoke with at the bank assured me that this hypothesis could not happen because they were separate accounts! I cannot tell you how glad I was to find out that there shouldn’t be anymore problems with bill pay. Because I cannot even begin to tell you how much easier life is when you can pay bills online!!

Once that was confirmed I asked her to explain the situation to the banker who was helping us. He then spoke with the branch manager, who suggested that he call the originating branch to get them to make some kind of customer satisfaction report to credit my parents all the late fee charges that were incurred as a result of the cancelled payments. Uh huh. Got that? So let this be a lesson to everyone. This is the Patriot Act in action. Don’t get me wrong, in this day of ID theft I do appreciate the lengths the banks and government are going to protect everyone.

We were all starving by then, and so we headed straight to lunch. All through the ordeal Rhys was moderately well behaved. He grew a little restless and towards the end was so hungry he started eating the dried coffee creamer the bank had as a courtesy at the refreshment table. Umm Yum. Hydro Oils! The guy that helped us out was so accommodating he even dug out a box of markers and some paper for Rhys.

After lunch we made our customary stop at the Sanrio store. I really wanted to look around and reward myself for getting the credit for mom and dad, but restrained myself mainly because I sensed how tired Rhys was getting and did not want to take my chances since we still had to go to Marukai. On the way I prepped him on how I expected him to behave and as an incentive promised to let him ride on one of the machines in front of the market if he succeeded in behaving. As you have seen with your own two eyes he did it!

He fell asleep on the ride home. Was still asleep as I dropped a few bags off at Goodwill, stopped off at the library for a few DVDs and books, dropped Dad off and picked Henry up. He finally awoke as we were pulling up into the driveway.

They are now ensconced in their room watching the Sponge Bob DVD I got for them. I have to prep Henry on his spelling test tomorrow and give him a bath.


Rhys as a matter of fact had 2 showers today! One this morning… he jumped in while Kenny was in, and again when we got home. He walked over to me and said that he felt wet (the Pull up) and I think he thought he got his clothes wet and so requested a shower!

Forgot to mention that Rhys asked for 2 little cups of jello while we were at the store. One red and the other orange. One for him and the other for Henry. I got them seeing as he was being so good. Well. Let me just say I will think twice before buying jello again. I’m assuming they each had a few spoonfuls of the stuff, because some of it is lying in clumps on their play table and the rest is scattered all over the floor!