Yesterday I tried to register for internet
banking. Upfront the website warned
me to be careful when filling in my details
because if I did so incorrectly
three times over they would
close down my accounts
close down my accounts
close down my accounts …
all three of them.
That should have warned me off
but as I’ve long
gone to gunfights with a knife,
like James Coburn in The Magnificent Seven
(where his name was Britt, not Brett)
I did not want to be seen to be
backing down from a face-off; so I
clicked on …
with suspended breath.
This was living on the brink;
extreme virtual living beats
gunfights with a knife any time.
Don’t know how far I got
with this labyrinthine exercise as
every time you complete a section
they tell you to click “Continue”,
but how many more “Continues”
there are to completion
is never revealed.
All I know is that I failed in this
extreme test of virtual living
as they started asking questions
I did not understand and
– even worse –
started explaining things in acronyms
(for COL!) I couldn’t even guess at.
So dazed, frustrated, breathless
and exhausted, I closed down the site;
confused too because I didn’t know
where I was.
So last night I suffered nightmares:
I dreamt that as come-uppance for closing
down their site prior to completing
registration, FNB had
closed down
closed down
closed down
my accounts …
all three of them.