Okay, before I get started, I went through this and read it outloud to Izzy and she said, “No one’s going to want to read all that.”  

And I said, “Yeah, they will.”

And she replied with, “Here, you need to include this with it.” and sent me the following picture.

So, if any of you are bored to tears…and agree with Izzy…my apologies and just back away from the computer slowly.

So, I promised you guys a full telling of the story of my fast three days in Orlando. 

I arrived at the airport in Indy early, like I usually do.  I am a BIG believer in that “if you are not ten minutes early, you are late.”  That’s for meetings and such, close to home.  When you’re talking about needing to be at the airport that a mapping program tells you takes an hour and 30 minutes and you know it’s construction season in Indiana (it’s almost always constructions season in Indiana), then that ten minutes early becomes 30 minutes early to account for delays.  I didn’t hit any delays, but if I had left “on time” you can bet I would have.

I sent you guys a picture of what the waiting area at the airport looked like.  One thing that was odd though.  It was the first time ever I’ve gone through TSA without a hitch.  No additional pat down, no extra searching of my carry on, nothing.  I’m always a special case.  I have two fake hips and a fake knee and wear a “medical device” under my arm to read my blood glucose level and that usually always annoys them. And it did on the way home, but on the way out…nothing.

I’d like to say something nice here about Allegiant Airlines.  They are a complete no-frills airline…to the max.  When you originally book your flight, the price they quote you includes a seat, seatbelt, and a personal item.  Then you add stuff from there.  You upgrade to a carry on and upgrade again to a checked bag.  With a carry-on item, you also get to pick your seat and with a checked bag you get expedited boarding and such.  You can also do 99% of this online.  The best part is that it is SO much less expensive than the major airlines.  Now, I didn’t realize it until later, but they are pretty relaxed about the personal item.  I went with the carry-on option and then found out that the little backpack that I used for the 3 days would have counted as a personal item because it fit under my seat.  So, basically, if it fits under the seat, it’s a personal item.  Anybody know where I can purchase a bag of holding cheap?  Anyway, they will also hook you up with car rental and hotel if you want to do the whole package deal.  I did the car rental route, through Alamo.  And they were great, too.  Especially Arlene…on the off chance you are a fellow reader Arlene at Sanford Airport in Orlando, Impish Dragon said you did a fantastic job.  Round trip, upgrade to the carry-on bag (that I didn’t need) and rental car for 500 bucks.  You can’t argue with that. 

So, I land at Sanford airport in Orlando, a very nice little airport, don’t have to go through baggage claim, look for the car rental place and they are all in the same building right outside the door of the airport and they are packed … Groan! … except I see a sign that says “Alamo” with an arrow point that-a-way.  So, I pause, light a cigar, and start walking.  I need to stretch my legs a bit anyway.  I go around the corner, down a stretch of sidewalk, across a street, across a bridge, down another stretch of covered sidewalk and come to another building that says “Alamo”.  I peek inside and there are two people in line.  Thank you, God, for taking such good care of me so far!

Ten minutes later and NO problems with my license this time and I am following my GPS which I’ve easily hooked up to the car’s onscreen display, to my lawyer’s office.  I am just there to pick up some papers, my real meeting is this afternoon, and I’m off to Partners Federal Credit Union, also known as the gates to Dante’s Inferno.

Walk in the door and there are two cute 20 something greeters at the front counter, male and female, and of course because I’m an old man, the female greets me, I tell her I want to speak to someone about my brother’s account.  She gives me a quizzical look and at this point I’m still in a good mood, so I offer her a brief explanation, she asks for my identification, which I thought a bit odd, but handed over my driver’s license.  She scanned my license, gave it back and asked me to have a seat. 

Anyway, this story could easily become a novel if I don’t get to the point. 

The point is, I sat with this guy for an hour and a half.  He took a copy of everything.  EVERYTHING.  It was very obvious he had never dealt with this particular problem before, and it was also obvious that all the adults had left the office and left the children in charge.  He called and texted everyone he could think of for help, and no one was answering.  He was getting that crinkly look around his eyes that told me he was just on this side of panic when he fell back on what I believe he thought was his tried-and-true safety net when he said to me, “well, we’ll submit all this to our legal department, and they’ll mail you out a check.” Then he said back with a smug look on his face.

I think I almost made him cry when my only response was, “no.”  I waited a beat or two before I went on.  Just before he started to speak again, and said, “First of all I was told I had to sign for this in person, so I took time off work and the expense of flying out here form Indiana, rented a car and I’m flying back on Saturday, so there will be a check in my hand by then.  Second, legally, I am the personal representative for my brother’s estate, you have an order signed by a judge stating that fact, and I’m pretty sure you guys don’t have a choice in the matter and my next stop after I leave here is to my lawyer’s office to find out for sure, so you guys best get this worked out.  You’ve got until Saturday. 

And I got up and left.

And went to my lawyer’s office where they did indeed tell me that if they didn’t come up off the money, they could be held liable.  We did some other lawyerly type stuff and I went home for the day.  Home being Ken’s house and it now being about 5 pm and me having stopped at some fast feeder and brought something back with me to eat.  Understand that at this point in time I could barely reproduce noises that resembled words and could legitimately add 2 plus 2 and come up with 4 a statistically accurate number of times.  I got a decent amount of sleep Tuesday night into Wednesday, got about a 1 hour nap Wednesday afternoon, then had to go to the store, make a bunch of phone calls, pack my little backpack and make sure I had all the paperwork I might possibly need while I was in Florida, I had jail ministry Wednesday night and got home from that about 9 pm, had to pick up Izzy from work at about 10 pm, got her home and settled and climbed into bed at about 11 pm.  I was pretty wound up and didn’t fall asleep right away and my alarm went off at 1:15 am Thursday morning and I was on the road to the airport a little before 2 am.  So, from 8 am Wednesday morning to I finally laid down Thursday night I probably got about 2 hours or so of real sleep.  It’s kind of amazing that I made it to the house at all.

That evening, I had agreed to look for a Disney laptop that my brother had that Disney wanted back that no one else had managed to find.  I think the reason that no one else had managed to find it was that it was sitting on a shelf, right out in the open and when I checked the serial number, sure enough, there it was.  So, I texted his old boss and told him I found it and said I’d be happy to drop it off.  I kind of wanted to bump into some of his (and now my) friends that he worked with and low and behold, he was in the same building that the bank was in, so we planned to meet up in the morning and I laid down on the couch and I was asleep before the blanket was completely over me.

Not sure if I got up in the night or not, but I did remember to set up some GI alarms around the house in case of intruders while I was sleeping.  (Another thing I do in a strange place).  Woke up the next morning ready to tackle the new day, packed up my stuff and hit the road. 

When I got to the bank/headquarters building where I was meeting the boss, he met me downstairs and brought me up, gave over the laptop and we sat there and visited for about an hour or so.  Fellow Christian, we shared a little bit of background in law enforcement, it was nice.  None of the rest of the folks were there. 

When I finished up, I went downstairs to where the bank…credit union was and asked to speak to the same guy I spoke to yesterday.  I knew he was there, ‘cause I saw him.  Again, it was can I see your driver’s license and I was asked to take a seat.  But today’s wait was a lot longer.  When I went back, I went to see a different person.  She looked just as young as the other guy and I thought she was another one of the kids, but she wasn’t.  She starts off with what can I help you with, I told her that’s why I asked to speak to the other guy because he had helped me yesterday and I didn’t really want to rehash the whole thing all over again, but I’ll give it to you quick and I explained the situation to her.  She asked to see my license.  What is it with these people and my license? 

Just as an aside here…she never let go of my license the whole time I was there.  If she got up to make a copy of something, she took my license with her.  If she went to consult with someone else, my license went, too.  I thought that was so weird.  When I mentioned it to someone else, they came up with the only plausible explanation I’ve heard yet.  They thought it might be an anti-theft technique that this bank was taught.  You know, if I’ve got your ID, you’re less likely to rob the place because you are more readily identified.  It’s weird, but the only thing that makes even a modicum of sense so far.  Could also be a power thing seeing as evil these guys turned out to be.

Anyway, she starts asking for stuff.  I need this letter.  You should already have it; the guy yesterday took a copy of it.  I need that form.  You should already have it…etc.  Over and over again.  Every time she would ask for something she’d get an anticipatory look in her eye like, “Is this the one that he’s not going to have so that I can finally turn him down and get him out of here?”  and then I would produce said piece of paper or tell her that she already has it, an obvious look of disappointment would come over her face.  Now, we’ve been doing this dance for well over an hour and I’m almost continually asking God to help me remain pleasant and calm.  I almost messed up and prayed for patience.  Everyone knows you NEVER, EVER pray for patience.  I’m also going through a list of names in my head of people I can call to come bail me out of jail for when I snap and reach down and flip her desk over in frustration.  Hmmm, it does seem like it might be bolted to the floor pretty good, but it just looks like that cheap fiber board stuff…even if I can’t flip it over, odds are that I can at least tear the top of it off fairly easily.  That gives as much of an impression of frustration as flipping over a desk does…it’s not much of a desk anyway … I’ll bet there’s a lot of wires that …

Yeah, like that.

So, we’re sitting there staring at each other like two gunmen in the old west, facing each other in the middle of the dirt street, with our hands near our six shooters, waiting for the other to make the next move.  She scoops everything up off her desk (which may not be there when she gets back) tells me she’ll be right back (she still has my license, by the way, maybe that’s what stopped me from flipping over her desk…hey!  Maybe THAT’S the reason!!!) and she walks off. 

I wait…somewhat patiently.

She comes back.  Sits down and says, “I need something with the name of the account where you are going to deposit the money.”  I said, my brothers account?  The one I opened for the estate?  She nods.  I said, it’s the Estate… She interrupts me, “I need it in writing.”  Smirk.  Like, aha!  I’ve got you now!

I said, “Give me a piece of paper and I’ll write it down for you.”

She said, “No, I need something from the bank.”

I said, “Why?”

“So we know how to make out the check.”

“How about if I let you talk to the people at the bank.”

“No, it must be in writing.” Now she is almost grinning…rubbing her hands together in glee.  She is finally going to be rid of this annoying man AND the All-Powerful Credit Union Wins and Keeps Its Money!!

So, I looked at her for a moment, sighed and said, “Well, one of the nice things about living in a little bitty town from northern Indiana is that everybody pretty much knows everybody else, and we don’t mind helping each other out.”  I picked up my phone and I called my bank.  I called my branch where I do all my business, but they must’ve been busy because my call got routed to the call center and one of the ladies, I recognized answered the phone and I won’t use her name because I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, so let’s just call her Susan. 

I said, “Hi Susan, I was trying to reach Missy over at the Peru branch but let me explain to you what’s going on down here in Orlando, Florida and see if you can help me out. (Now, keep in mind, the evil one is still sitting across from me waiting for me to crash and burn) I’m at my brother’s bank trying to close it out so I can move the funds to the estate account that I opened back home with our bank.” 

I can hear Susan taping on her keyboard in the background and then she says, “the one for Kenneth?”

I said, “Exactly.”

Susan said, “Well what do you need?”

I said, “Well, it’s more the craziness that these people down here need.  If you can believe it, they need the exact name on the account in writing.”

Susan said, “Why?”

“That’s the same question I asked.  So they know what to put on the cashier’s check.  At least I assume it’s a cashier’s check.” 

I glanced over at the evil one and she nodded at the same time Susan said, “yeah it should be,” and then followed up with, “well, why don’t you just tell them?  Or write it down for them?”

“Susan, that’s the same, very obvious questions that I asked them.  The silly answer I got back was that it HAD to be in writing.”

She said, “Bob, that’s just causing trouble to cause trouble.  What email address do you want me to send this to?”

I said, “The is the EXACT same conclusion that I’m drawing.”  And I gave her the address and we sat there and visited while I heard her taping away on her computer.  She told me she sent it and when it popped up on my tablet, I flipped the tablet around to where the lady could see it and I said, will that do? And she sighed a big sigh and said yes and wrote the name down herself on a piece of scrap paper and asked me to forward her the email, if I wouldn’t mind and handed me her card. 

Another very long time and I was finally leaving with a check and swore I would never darken their doorway again.  It was 3, or maybe even close to 4 hours of dealing with those people to get a check from them that they were legally obligated to give to me anyway.

That really shot Friday.  I went back to Ken’s house where I looked for tax paperwork and receipts and such.  No joy.  When I got back home I did find a tax guy.  An old buddy of mine is doing taxes and I trust him, so he ended up filing an extension for me on Ken’s behalf and it was accepted so that’s taken care of.

Talking to Disney HR they don’t want to give me Ken’s W-2s without me giving them a copy of his Will.  I told them they don’t need, nor do they get a copy of his Will.  They can have a copy of my ID, front and back like they asked for and they can have a copy of the court order affirming me as his Personal Representative.  Legally that’s all they need and that’s all they get.  I don’t know why they are being such a pain about it.  They have to know I can just go through the IRS and get the 1099s that they have to file anyway.

And then I caught his mortgage up the other night to the same credit union that I just fought with.  They were happy to take my money, but when it came time to give me answers to how much was owed, when the payment was due, stuff like that…they wouldn’t tell me.  Well, how am I supposed to send you the money each month if you won’t tell me how much to send?  I can’t tell you because you’re not on the account.  I’m the personal representative, put me on the account.  I can’t do that.  How am I supposed to send you the mortgage each month?  It will be on the monthly statement.  So you can’t tell me, but you are going to mail me a monthly statement telling me everything you can’t tell me?

And that’s the stuff I am dealing with.

And that’s also all the time I have.  It took a bit longer than my lunch break.  So I really do need to get back to work.  I hope to have another issue put together for Saturday.  The way my life is becoming overwhelming lately, we’ll have to see.  What you got today is just a couple of days…we haven’t even TALKED about my work life… Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha…

Oh!  I forgot to mention, I did stop on my way to the airport and visited with a friend.  The female half of the Christian couple that I met the first time I was down there.  We had coffee at the place where Ken worked.  I got to sit in his chair, at his desk, in his room where he worked.  We visited for a little while.  It was nice.  They had a little shelf set up in remembrance of him and I took a picture.  I’ll end with that.

Cheers,

Impish Dragon