Unauthorized Withdrawals.... Using Bad Language !!

Safe and noun...

Might as well tell you one more tale about a classic, credit union "unauthorized withdrawal" event. Yesterday it was the inagile, "can't-quite-keep-up-with-the-pistol", helmet head; today it's the inappropriate use of bad language.

CU branches which serve university communities always deal with a group of highly-educated, and often exotically eccentric, members.  It usually takes an equally exotic and equally eccentric CU branch staff to meet the service expectations of such a diverse member base. 

Thought Full...!!

We have quite often found that our staff in such branches are the spouses or "significant others" of grad students and doctoral candidates - working at the CU to financially hold the family together, until those advanced degrees are completed.  Many of these staff members have already earned advanced degrees in their own right - and are very savvy, intense, sophisticated folks!

Well, our story begins late one afternoon at the university branch, when a young man jogs into the office sporting a pastel-blue jump suit, Reeboks, and a NY Yankees baseball cap. He approached the counter and proceeded to hand one of the tellers a note...

... which read: 

"This is a burglery, give me all your money."

Unfortunately the teller, who held a master's degree in English, immediately "lost it", but not in the way you might think.

I burgle
You burgle
He, she, it burgles

The teller, having studied the note closely, began to firmly reproach our jogger over his misspelling of the word "burglary" and went on to inform him that burglary was an incorrect usage of the term anyway. "To burgle" she opined involved "breaking and entering by force, usually at night".  Clearly she noted it was still daytime and no force or breaking and entering were required to jog into the credit union! The more appropriate noun she said would be "robbery"...

Dangle a participle will you...!!

Dumbfounded, the robber attempted to protest, but the teller was having no back talk at this point and proceeded incisively with an added critique of his improper use of a comma rather than a semi-colon.  She actually took the note and "blue penciled" in the corrections in spelling and punctuation, then leaned across the counter to share "his corrected paper" with the increasingly bewildered  Yankees fan! Under fire from an English major, his growing agitation and frustration were vividly apparent.

But the Queen of English had not yet finished with her miscreant ! Next she launched into a discourse on the fact that his request should have been for "cash", not the word "money" which was far too loose in terms of phraseology. Money was a "medium of exchange" which she said encompassed checks, money orders, and many other forms of negotiable instruments.  

One, Two, Twe...

If you meant "to burgle" a credit union she said wryly and pointedly, then you should be very clear about that which you seek... which would be what I have in the drawer, which is CASH !!!

The lecture had now gone on for over ten minutes and, as far as the robber could determine, the "unauthorized withdrawal request" was not making much progress.... Facing the prospect of further literacy training, humiliation, and the possibility of having to rewrite the corrected note 1000 times on some, as yet hidden, blackboard for the remainder of the afternoon... the robber politely tipped his cap and hurriedly fled the scene....

May I withdraw
my request...?

He has not been back since.... nor do we expect him.