I slept twelve hours with random half hours of waking in between. I went to take a nap at around 5:30 yesterday afternoon, and I didn’t wake up until two hours ago. I felt great. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I really was. The 5 AM wake-up calls had taken a larger toll on me and my thinking than I had previously considered.

And then I checked my bank account. I was looking forward to buying groceries.

Nope. No food for me. Bank of America wrongfully charged me $105 in overdraft fees. They removed one of the $35 fees for a $7 purchase—”as a courtesy.” They insisted I recognize that, but I fought with them for twenty more minutes. I learned there’s two different windows to online banking, one which tells you a really nice and sometimes true story. The other one, called “Account Balance History,” tells you just how dirty the banking numbers game can be. “No, sure, you have the money. I know your checkbook agrees with this. But, see, the way the charges came through [note the passive voice], that fucked you. It doesn’t matter that you balance your checkbook. It doesn’t matter, as you pointed out, that we’ve been sued for wrongfully charging customers fees. No one here is going to help make this right.” That was gist of what I was hearing. I wanted to scream at the woman, but I couldn’t.

My heart rate was too high. It still is, twenty minutes later. And my body is shaking. I couldn’t keep arguing. I wanted to, but the anxiety was getting too high. So I gave in. I jotted down the “account manager’s” name and when I spoke with her; she told me to have a nice day. I wanted to cause her physical violence for having the audacity to wish me a good day after she had spoken to me with such irritation about her employers’ shady practices. I’m disgusted with myself for having been so nice to her. I was the nicest complainer: persistent but logical and respectful. No belligerence, no yelling: just hard facts and insistence. Maybe if I wasn’t so afraid to get mad, I’d have seventy more dollars in my account. Maybe I’d have food in my fridge. They wouldn’t even let me close my account over the phone.

Bank of America reminded me how little control I have over my money, and therefore my body, as a lower-middle class American. I can only laugh at my poor standard of living. I have no other choice. Roe fought for abortion rights so women could have the right to make choices about their bodies. The effort was righteous, but it suddenly seems so ill-focused. Especially in a capitalist society, it all comes back to money.

Related posts:

1. Freewriting Panic Attack: The Building. Shaken. Up.
2. Freewriting: Obsessive Thoughts
3. Will Work for Rest
4. Freewriting Panic Attack: Waking Nightmares
5. Freewriting Panic Attack: There’s Never Enough to Cry About