Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Today in "I'm really old" news

I went to the bank at lunch time to redeem some Canada Savings Bonds. Remember Canada Savings Bonds? Your parents and grand-parents probably had some.

These were "heirloom" bonds that my dad had purchased in 1992 (!) and were transferred to me when he passed away. The Canadian govt officially notified me that they were kaput and no longer earning interest as of last November.

(Why did I wait 6 months to redeem them? I lost my safety deposit box keys...but that's a whole other post.)

Anyway, I accompanied the bank lady into the vault to retrieve my safety deposit box and my bonds and then went downstairs to redeem. We're talking a whole $2,000 here!

The bank teller (age 12) looked at them and said: "Wow, I'll have to ask how to do this because I've never seen one of these before! This is great. I'm learning something today."  Great, kid, happy to help.

His supervisor showed him what to do (FYI, it's basically like depositing a cheque) and away I went with $2,000 in my chequing account. As I was leaving, the 12-year-old teller said "If the bank calls you about the service today, tell them it was great cause you taught me something."

I await their call.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Go ahead and thank me

I went to Florida and brought Spring back with me.

It wasn't easy carrying that sun in my suitcase, but I managed.