with love, from barclays

"I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart."

- e.e.cummings

When you get a letter from your bank that begins with the words “it would appear that the activity on your account is…” you are bound to complete the sentence yourself a hundred times before you get to the end. What. The activity on my account is…

a) suspicious?

b) abnormal

c) physically and humanly impossible

d) too busy

e) inconsistent with my earnings

f) more focused on spending than saving

g) more focused on wants than needs

h) suggestive of an illegal profession

i) suggestive of alcoholism

j) too caffeine-oriented

k) not consistent with standard activities of a uk resident

l) suggestive of suspicious allegiances and duties toward the french economy

***

You may then imagine that what follows this is something like:

To avoid investigation or prosecution, please explain why:

a) you receive money on a regular basis from an older man in a foreign country

b) you buy books about new york, make hotel reservations in paris, and buy plane tickets to italy

c) you only shop at waitrose

d) you keep buying umbrellas

e) you change your billing address every 5½ weeks

f) you buy boxes, labels and markers once a month

g) (further, why) you have never considered storage?

h) you never go to the atm and pay for everything with your card

i) you don’t just buy a monthly oyster card?

In addition, please explain how:

a) you manage to spend four hours in selfridges making a purchase every 27 minutes

b) you succeed in covering the entire borough of chelsea and kensington before 9.30am

c) you envision carrying on in this manner. That is, start saving, bitch.

***

And so, you begin imagining how you might reply...

Dear Sir/Madam, in response to your recent queries:

a) i speedwalk with a creditcard in my pocket.

b) i don’t like coins.

c) please extend my sincerest apologies and gratitude to your staff for the suffering they have incurred processing my numerous card transactions.

d) selfridges is the only place in the world where i can spend four hours without experiencing a single craving for nicotine. i therefore consider this an indispensible duty towards my health.

e) i am forgetful when it comes to umbrellas. i mean, i don’t like them.

f) i do on the other hand, like champagne and coffee.

g) the older a man in a foreign country is my father. not, my pimp.

h) oh, and waitrose? waitrose is the best.

i) i know, but whole foods is too far away.

j) paris has better boutiques than london.

k) i miss new york.

l) and italy? believe me, i’m trying, i just can’t seem to get enough.

m) as for boxes and frequent moving…i’ll let you in on a little secret. love (like the labels on those boxes read) is fragile.

n) on the topic of the oyster. i will i will i will. next month.

o) with regards to saving, the solution is simple, and it seems, entirely in your hands. do not allow any withdrawals from my savings account. in other words, make it your job, bitch.

***

So, all of this is bound to go through your head upon reading the first line. At least its what went through mine. But when I carried on reading, I learnt that their concerns had little to do with Paris or Selfridges, and were more focused on that three-letter word that ends with x. Much to my dismay, not the one that begins with an s. The letter was about tax. I don’t speak bureaucracy very well, but I think what it was trying to say was: “you earn interest on your savings, and you need to pay tax on this interest, which you don’t. you may be exempt from paying this tax if you fall under one of the 476 categories on the following page. If you do indeed fall under one of these categories, then you need to fill out the attached 837 forms to prove it.”

Turns out I am indeed exempt, and so need to fill out the forms. What I’d rather do however, is send this:

Dear Mr. B,

Thank you very much for your recent letter ref: 3452872333 regarding the tax on my savings. I greatly appreciate your heartfelt concerns, and I sincerely apologize for my negligence on the matter. I would however like to pose a question. As you yourself noted, my saving tendencies are not very strong, and are only getting worse. Which is to say I have never had much in savings, and will soon have nothing at all. So, do we really need to go through all this bullshit, I mean bureaucracy, for the, what, 17 pence in interest my “savings” have earned? What’s the tax on that, like, a penny? Tell you what. You hate paperwork, I hate paperwork…paperwork, is the real bitch here. So why don’t we just avoid all this exemption business and I’ll happily pay the tax. In fact, I’ll pay double, make that two whole pennies. And…d’ya mind just charging that to my card?

Thanks doll.