Tuesday, October 31, 2006

my mother's box got drilled at the bank

Hey, I'm not making this up. The bank manager phoned my mother yesterday and asked her to come in with me because there was a problem with her safety deposit box that I have access to. The manager didn't try to explain the problem on the phone so we didn't know what to expect.
It turns out the bank put all the keys for all the empty safety deposit boxes into an empty safety deposit box and then locked it and forgot which box the keys were in.
So a couple of weeks ago they brought 2 security guys out from Toronto to hunt for it and they drilled Mom's box thinking it was the one. When they realized they had the wrong box, they had to video tape and list the contents with 2 bank officers watching. Its a good thing there was nothing embarassing or illegal in there! Mom hasn't been in to the bank vault to open her box since 2002 so its good that I'm not a crackhead or a gambler and I didn't sell everything to buy drugs or pay gambling debts or something!
The contents of the box were put in a sealed plastic bag and then the sealed bag was put in another sealed bag with a list of the contents.
The sealed bag has been locked in the vault until today. The manager explained that she would have called sooner but she has been dealing with a tragedy. One of her best friends who managed another CIBC branch was killed in a car accident.
We had to witness the sealed bags being cut open with 2 bank officers present and then we had to go through the contents and check it with the list they had made with the list we had already.
All the diamonds, rubies and gold bars were gone! Ok there weren't any goodies like that. All the contents were accounted for.
So now Mom has a new box at the bank and they gave her $85 for the 2007 rental fee to make up for their error of drilling the old box. It took 85 minutes to do all the paperwork and verifying of the items.
The new box number is by coincidence Mom and Dad's birthdays combined! The manager said it wasn't the next box number to be given out and just on a whim she chose the number not knowing it would have meaning for Mom.

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