The Website of a Guy Named Craig
Life would be really boring without a good laugh occasionally.
Calvin and Hobbes, conspiracy theory.
A few days ago I decried some right-wing fools who can’t debate. Today GoComics (Andrews McMeel Universal) published an old Calvin and Hobbes comic by my hero, Bill Watterson, that pretty much takes aim at conspiracy theorists. See it here.
I was looking for something on my hard drive today, and found this. To be honest, I didn’t remember writing it, so I searched for it online. I didn’t find it, so I’ve come to the conclusion that I did indeed write it, just two years into my sixteen-year relationship with Stanbic Bank Zambia that I terminated (with extreme prejudice) at the end of last month. I was probably saving it for the blog/website that I plan to set up where I will document my sixteen years of torment.
Anyway, enjoy. It even made me chuckle fourteen years after I wrote it.
The Joy of Bank (or Getting Banked from Behind)
By, I.M. Banked, 31 August 2010
The joys of banking (and, by corollary, being banked) are greatly underrated by the general public. I personally experience the joys of being banked by Stanbic on a regular basis. It’s a match made in heaven, because clearly Stanbic enjoys banking me. We often spend hours engaging in phone bank when the banking I usually get via the Internet has gone soft. But sometimes we get together in person, and it doesn’t take an overactive imagination to figure out what position I, as the submissive customer, am required to assume by my banking master.
While I do enjoying the banking I get from Stanbic, I often find myself wondering if I could get banked by another institution. Well, I know I could (bankers have a certain reputation), but will the bank be better? Will the banker whisper sweet nothings in my balance before banking me? One of the things I enjoy most in my relationship with Stanbic is the unpredictability of the withdrawal — will it be an early withdrawal, or will it be late? If things become too predictable, I worry that I’ll become bored with having my monthly banking on the same date and in the same quantity each month. Sometimes I just love the excitement of finding that I’ve been banked earlier in the month than usual, leaving me with not enough to give my other bankers.
Something else I particularly enjoy is being passed from banker to banker, while they laugh and promise me that the next banker will give me the banking that I’m really looking for. I must admit; sometimes I get my hopes up, thinking that the next banker will have a bigger tool with which he (or she) might quench my thirst for customer satisfaction. But while I do so enjoy this particular fetish, I am often disappointed, finding that the next banker’s resolve isn’t as stiff as it had appeared at first. Sometimes though the resolve is certainly quite rigid and inflexible — priapic even — but in those cases the banker turns to his own onanistic needs and I am left wanting yet again.
Back in January I confided in one of my bankers that some of his friends — other bankers — were violating me as I slept, making non-consensual (sometimes simultaneous) transactions. In the nine months since, many promises have been made by my banker that these unwanted acts of bank would be dealt with, but the unsolicited banking I’m receiving continues unabated. Sometimes I despair, telling myself that this is the kind of banking over that we must expect in Africa; yet I hold desperately to the words of my banker: “[W]e take pride in being part of a large banking group rooted in Africa but reaching out to all corners of the world.” [To all you Australians, I urge you not to think of the word “rooted” in the same way most of you already are!] I yearn for the day when a more considerate banker in another corner of our round world might teach my banker how to bank me more tenderly, more considerately, and with due regard to my bottom line. These considerate bankers realise that communication is paramount, and my needs are important too.
If you too like to be banked, I’m happy to tell you that my relationship with Stanbic is not monogamous. While I engage in bank with only a few bankers, Stanbic are quite happy to bank anyone willing to walk through their doors with a reference letter and the appropriate stack of documentation. Come on down and join the party. We can all be banked together!
I think I may have had an obvious point in the “nine months” to which I referred, but I clearly didn’t carry on with it and I don’t remember what it may have been now. And despite the 2010 date on it, I can enthusiastically report that Stanbic are completely and totally banking their customers to this day in 2024! This is why I have dumped their sorry arses; I wasn’t happy with being banked any more.
Found this little nugget in the “find” man page recently:
A ‘%’ character followed by any other character is discarded, but the other character is printed (don’t rely on this, as further format characters may be introduced). A ‘%’ at the end of the format argument causes undefined behaviour since there is no following character. In some locales, it may hide your door keys, while in others it may remove the final page from the novel you are reading.
Reminds me of a T-shirt I have:
$> man woman $> Segmentation fault (core dumped)
An elderly spinster who was a dog lover agreed to look after and house her neighbours’ dog whilst the neighbours went on their holidays. The only problem was that the spinster’s own dog was a bitch that was in heat, and the neighbour’s dog was a male. Nevertheless she had a large house and she was able to keep the two dogs apart.
As she lay in her bed drifting off to sleep one night, the spinster was suddenly woken by awful howling and moaning sounds from downstairs. She rushed down to find the dogs locked together, as dogs do when mating. The dogs appeared to be in pain, howling but unable to disengage. Try as she might she could not part them and she was perplexed as what to do next. Though it was late she reluctantly phoned the vet, and after a few rings the rather grumpy voice of the vet answered the phone. The spinster explained the problem.
The vet said, “I want you to take the phone to the dogs and place it down alongside them. I will then phone your number back and the noise of the telephone ringing should make the male dog lose his erection and able to withdraw from the bitch.”
“Oh. Do you think that will work?”
“Well, it just worked fine for me.”
Divorced Barbie.
One day a father is on his way home from work and he suddenly remembers that it’s his daughter’s birthday. He pulls over to a toy shop and asks the sales person, “How much for one of those Barbies in the display window?”
The salesperson answers, “Which one do you mean, sir? We have: Work Out Barbie for $19.95, Shopping Barbie for $19.95, Beach Barbie for $19.95, Disco Barbie for $19.95, Ballerina Barbie for $19.95, Astronaut Barbie for $19.95, Skater Barbie for $19.95, and Divorced Barbie for $265.95.”
The amazed father asks, “It’s what?! Why is the Divorced Barbie $265.95 and the others only $19.95?”
The annoyed salesperson rolls her eyes, sighs, and answers, “Sir, Divorced Barbie comes with Ken’s car, Ken’s house, Ken’s boat, Ken’s furniture, Ken’s computer, one of Ken’s friends, and a key chain made with Ken’s balls.”
