Friday, August 25, 2006

attempting the mild derby rant

As any regular reader here will/should know, my wife is a member of our local roller derby league, Hard Knox Rollergirls, who are members of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association. These girls have been working hard to get themselves in shape, strengthen their bodies, better their skating abilities, and they've been working at this for several months now. It's really gratifying, even to me as an (what I'll call) associated observer to see the amount of work these girls are doing. It is work, and it is hard, and I can see so much improvement in their abilities. I know there are some new and strong friendships growing, and I would even wager that many of these girls have developed strength other than physical.

By the way, roller derby is in fact a sport, and I suggest that anyone who disagrees should lace up their skates, put on their pads and try any one of these girls on the rink. Even the smallest of these girls will happily point out the error in the idea that this isn't a real sport.

The Tragic City Rollers put together an amazing team. One of their jammers in particular seemed to have rockets installed in her skates as she zipped around. I do not want to detract at all from the work they've done to prepare themselves or from the spirit they showed, and I respect their efforts no less than the effort of our own local league. They fought just as hard as our girls.

Before I'm completely done I want to reiterate the pride I have for the Hard Knox Rollergirls. There is so much dedication in our league. These girls push themselves so hard at every practice, and I know that every match they play is going to be good. Regardless of the score, they can all hold their heads high. They fought hard. They fought beautifully. They kick motherfucking ass, hard as hell!

Updated to add: I have removed some content from this post. The Tragic City Rollers were gracious hosts and were tough competitors. I regret having made any suggestion that they were unfair in the match described above, which is the content I removed. Both cities were well represented in this bout, and all the girls and staff should be proud of themselves. To all Tragic City Rollers, I am sorry I posted what I did. Thank you to those who commented, and if you'd like, see this post to see some explanation for my change of heart.

money grubbing finks at Amsouth bank

Banks are shitty places to have your money stolen from you. They can set their practices/procedures any way they want, and you can't do much but walk away if you are unhappy. Once they've stolen a pile of your money though, it's a little late and walking away is basically a Pyrrhic victory.

Before we left town this past weekend we deposited Momma's check. We made a few purchases using our debit card over the weekend knowing that we had plenty of money, that along with the check, the sales would clear on Monday night. That was not the case.

Apparently, because the check is not drawn on Amsouth, soon not to be our bank anymore, they deposited only one hundred dollars of it on Monday. They also let all the purchases go through before the check, though the check was deposited at least a day before any of the purchases were made.

So the bank decided that they should charge us almost three hundred dollars for going slightly over, which if the business was transacted in the order it happened would never happen. And when Momma called them today, they decided to be smug assholes about it and offer us a third of the money back as they are content to steal only a small amount.

So Amsouth basically told us to go to hell because they were keeping the stolen money. Momma has had this job over two years, during which time her paychecks have never once bounced. We've had this account for over eight years, and the only other time this has happened to us, completely the fault of the bank, a much smaller amount of money stolen then, we were able to work the problem out. We have never been anything but good customers, maintaining a balance and never bouncing anything. Because Amsouth doesn't give a shit about their customers, they would rather lose good customers than not steal money.

So, thank you Amsouth. I hope you enjoy our money and the knowledge that your greed could really have hurt my children. My family will be fine without that two hundred dollars, but your greed is making my next week really difficult. And as soon as our different bills are through the bank, we will be taking our money and our business to a different bank.