by Patti
My car, high-maintenance bitch that she has become, decided to spring an oil leak, and M found me a reputable mechanic who would fix it right and for cheap. My favorite combination! The only caveat? His was a Cash Only enterprise. So as M and I drove through a somewhat questionable neighborhood to pick up my car the other night, I remembered that I had no cash on me.
We hunted down an ATM and I withdrew $200. Then I remembered the bill was actually $237, and tried to withdraw $40 more. But when I did, the machine told me I had "exceeded my daily withdrawal limit". Now, I knew I had enough money in my account, so I tried again, and got the same message. Worried, I tried withdrawing $20. Still, the same message. Concerned my account would somehow freeze up, I gave up and ran to the car where M was waiting. "The machine wouldn't let me take out more than $200! It's as if it knows I shouldn't be spending money!" I lamented. "What am I gonna do? It's cash only!" M told me had $40 on him but that it was to buy a flan he had eaten when we had dropped off the car two nights before.
"$40 for FLAN?"
"I want to buy the whole thing," he told me. "It's the best flan I have ever eaten in my life!"
What "the whole thing" meant, I didn't know, but for $40 it had better give a neck massage as its being eaten. Oh wow, that sounds so porny.
Anyway.
I was supremely annoyed that M was actually telling me that a) he was spending $40 on flan; and, b) he was choosing to BUY FLAN instead of forking over his cash to me so that I could remove my car from mechanic purgatory. I told him to use his debit card, but alas, the flan place was also a Cash Only enterprise. "Just write a check for the rest," he told me, as if this made perfect sense.
"BUT HE ONLY TAKES CASH! And you have the exact amount I need! What if he doesn't give me my car back?"
M just drove calmly towards the mechanic's "shop", which was actually located in a garage in the back of his house, and assured me he would take a check for the difference.
But before we got there, he actually did it: he stopped at the bakery to buy that flan! And some bread! I still could not believe he was choosing flan over saving my car. When he got in the car, all glowy with anticipation over the damned flan - which was the size of a HOUSE - he had just put in the trunk, I told him he'd better be prepared to fork over the cash from his account (Yes, we have separate accounts. One less thing to argue about!) if the mechanic refused my check. He just nodded, not really listening to me as he was already consumed with what was to come later - his precious flan quivering on a spoon - and continued on to the mechanic's.
Once we got there, M hopped out of the car and explained to the mechanic that we had the majority of the bill due in cash, and would he accept a check for the rest? I saw the mechanic shift his eyes my way, wondering if he was a fool to trust me. I wondered if I should offer him the flan as collateral? And then I saw him reluctantly shake his head in agreement. I quickly wrote out a check for the rest, got my car, and we were on our way.
Just as we were pulling out of the mechanic's alley, my car following M's, my cell phone rang. "Hello?"
"This is Chase Bank," stated a robotic woman's voice. "We have reason to believe there is fraud with your checking account," she continued, her stilted voice attempting suspense. "Please confirm your identity by answering the following questions...." I wasn't at all surprised, considering the amount of times I ignored the ATM's warnings to me, so I curiously listened as "the voice" asked me to select which car I was driving, to choose a street I have lived on, and finally, she asked me to pick a person I have lived with. She gave me a "Tracy", an "Amy", a "Shawn", and finally.... M. She said his name so seductively, I had to wonder if she had lived with him, too. If she only knew he spends $40 on flan. I fully expected "the voice" to ask me when was the last time I had, uh, relations with my husband, but she apparently felt satisfied with my answers, and finally agreed that it was okay to let me continue to withdraw money from my checking account.
When we got home, I told M about the Chase call, alternately impressed with its "quick response" system and freaked out by the "big brother-ness" of it all. As he listened, he cut himself a 15-foot slice of flan and set it on the counter, his eyes looking a bit like this:
