Bank visit

A story to lighten your day:

My wife asked me to drop off some deposits for her Girl Scout troop and a message to the customer service representative at the Macatawa Bank in Douglas the other day.

The Macatawa Bank is not our personal bank, so I'd never been in the building in Douglas before. My wife suggested just going through the drive-thru, but I wanted to see the interior.

Rain was pouring down when I arrived so I was nice and drenched by the time I got into the cathedral-like lobby (banks always try to intimidate customers). I approached the teller who had never seen me before. I handed her the deposit then said to her:

-- I also have a note here ...

Her face turned pale and her eyes widened. I got the meaning right away.

-- No! No!, I said. It's for Becky in customer service! It's about the Girl Scout account! See!

She read it with one eye still on me and, I'm sure, her finger hovering over the secret red alarm button.

She took the note and shoved a receipt in my direction. She didn't even tell me to have a nice day.

So, the moral of the story: Don't pass notes to bank tellers.

History lesson

For those of you who don't know the origin of the word "Macatawa," it's a sham.

Back in the 1930s, when the area tourism industry was booming, the local resort owners got together and decided that having an inland lake that connected to Lake Michigan called Black Lake was not exotic enough. Tourists wouldn't come to a lake with such as bland name, so they took the local Native American word "Macatawa" instead. It basically means "black lake."

Thought: Things aren't what they always seem to be.