A Year and Five Days Late, and 3500 Dollars Short

Tuesday. Ahh...Tuesday, of this ill-fated cheese-cutting faux pas week.

Tuesday was the day I was meeting my sister the ex-mayor's wife to storm the bank and liberate four figures worth of our mom's estate. The money that the title company made us put in an untouchable account until one year passed since Mom's passing. Just in case any claims were levied against her estate. Yeah. We never heard of such a thing, either, until we went to sell her house, which was transfer-on-death and not even in probate. Anyhoo...

The actual date of February 4 was not good for me, nor the 5th or the 8th. So we settled upon Tuesday the 9th. I arranged a personal day to take care of banking business. Sis called the title company to see what we needed to get our hot little hands on that cold hard cash. And that was the end of the planning.

I was supposed to contact Sis Monday evening to set the meeting time. But Hick hung up the phone just as The Pony and I entered the homestead, saying that Sis would not be able to make it. "Your sister says she knows you took off tomorrow, but Babe is very sick, and they're at the ER waiting for an ambulance to take her to Children's." Babe being the just-turned-two-year-old daughter of Sis's daughter. [Who is currently in Children's Hospital with a tube in her lung, trying to recover from pneumonia]

Still, I had the day off Tuesday to deal with the estate issue myself. To see if I could get the WHOLE THING from the bank, and give Sis her share later. I puttered around Monday night. "I don't have school tomorrow, Pony. We can stop for a donut if you want on the way to school. Then I'll do my banking as I come back to pick you up."

Tuesday morning, I found out after showering and packing The Pony's lunch that school was canceled! A SNOW DAY! A day off on my day off! After all that planning and lesson rearranging. Those dadgum meteorologists are overpaid clowns.

But that's not the worst part, getting up and ready at 4:50 a.m. and then having a day off on my day off.

I got out my folder from when we opened the account with part of Mom's money. I called the number on the business card the Account-Opener gave us. I asked for her. I explained the situation. Told her that Sis said the title company lady had called the courthouse, that no issue had come up, and that she told Sis she was calling the bank to let them know. I gave the AccOpe the account number. She said that I needed to call Nikki at the main branch. That Nikki was handling it, and that she would know what we needed. Then she asked if I had a letter from the title company. No. The title company lady said everything was good to go.

So I called Nikki and told her that AccOpe had asked me for a letter from the title company, and told me to call her. Nikki said, "I am so sorry you had to make an extra phone call. I put a letter in the file that says the account is unrestricted as of February 4th, per an email from NAME REDACTED at Local Land and Title Company. Anybody would have been able to see it. Either you or your sister, Sis, should be able to close the account and take out the money, since you are both owners of the account. You can do that at any of our branches."

With the wind chill at 5 degrees, I decided not to venture out on my double day off, but to wait until Wednesday. Since I wouldn't be meeting Sis, and since I knew exactly what to do, I would have time after school to go to the nearest branch of that bank and close the account.

Sounds deceptively simple at this point, huh?

Yep. Wait until you hear about Wednesday.