Trying to close a bank account here in Coimbra, I received this message:
Your message has been forwarded to the branch for review.
With nothing further to add at this time, we send our kind regards.
Best regards
And that was it. No name, nothing.
This is a bank that likes to move the conversation along.
Speaking of banks, my new bank, ActivoBank, has three odd benefits:
It has a dental insurance plan. €10 per month. Most services, including fillings, are €3.
Travel/Health insurance, €1.50 per day, which you can access even if you only need it for one day. Aside from the usual stuff — canceled flights and lost and damaged baggage — it covers emergency healthcare anywhere in the world, including medical flights home, depending on which country no longer wants to treat you.
SMARTDELAY. If your flight is delayed for more than an hour, you receive a code on your cell that gets you into any lounge in any airport in which you’re delayed. Just show the code — that’s the promise, anyway — and you’re eating egg rolls and nacho chips and yogurt and drinking Coke Zero (or, I’m told, grown-up food and alcohol, if you prefer) until your flight departs.
I called to tell Melissa about that last one:
“What do you think, honey? Pretty cool, huh?”
“Not really. You’re never going to use it.”
“Why do you say that? It’s possible there will be a two-hour delay in Paris on my way back to America.”
“So you’re going to find the lounge, which may be on the other side of the airport — if they send you the code in time — and you’re sure they’re going to let you in?”
“I’m sure someone has gotten in because of the code. And even if it works just once or twice, it’ll be great.”
“But it’s never going to work. When does that ever happen, anyway? Who knows if you’ll even get the code in time to go to the club without missing your flight? It’s too stressful, even if it does happen, which it won’t.”
“Why are you making from this shit, as your mother-in-law, whom you never met, would ask?”
“Baby, it’s not going to work. You’ll never get inside a lounge with the code.”
I had had enough. I unleashed my full Paul Reiser.
“Why can’t you give me this? It costs you nothing.”
