Yes You Can-Can

We were just finishing up a perfect little getaway in Niagara Falls.  We stayed in a beautiful bed and breakfast, and our hostess Marie could not have been more gracious.  Marie was Italian and made the most expansive and delicious breakfasts I have ever had at a B & B.  Just as you were thinking that you couldn’t eat another bite of the scrumptious pancakes, fruit, bacon and pastries she so lovingly provided, she would stick her head out of the kitchen and announce, “Don’t worry!  There’s more!”  She would then emerge with a platter of the most perfect omelets ever made.  And you would find room for an omelet.

So it was Friday afternoon, and I was fat and happy and using my debit card to settle up the bill with Marie.  She punched in the amount on her hand held credit card machine.  When she saw the receipt, she gasped and went a deadly shade of pale.  “Oh, no!”  she proclaimed, “I accidentally hit an extra 0.”  I looked at our receipt.  What should have been a charge for $336 was now a charge for $3360, which was more than the amount we had in our checking account.  Marie immediately called her banker, who informed her that, unfortunately, she was not authorized to make a refund of that large an amount.  It seems that in Canada they can hold your money hostage for someone else’s error.

Our account was overdrawn late on a Friday and we had nothing but a Canadian $20 in our pockets, which wouldn’t even be enough to fill up the gas tank for the drive back to Pittsburgh.  Marie was hyperventilating now.  I tried to calm Marie to keep her from having a full-blown nervous breakdown while my husband took control of dealing with the bankers.

First, he talked to Marie’s Canadian banker, telling him that he needed to authorize an immediate refund so that we had access to our own money so we could get home.

 

“I can’t do that, sir,” replied the banker.

“Yes, you can,” explained my husband, “When you say you can’t, you mean you won’t or it is against your policy, or is it not your procedure.  Let me talk to your supervisor.”

My husband called our bank back in the States and explained the situation.  Our banker couldn’t have been nicer.  She immediately cancelled the charge, took away the overdraft fee, and told my husband that we would have access to the money in our account in two business days, which should have been Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week. 

Marie was in tears. She couldn’t offer us another night’s stay as all her rooms were booked – there was no room at the Inn.  She offered to lend us $100 to get home.

But my husband wasn’t finished with the bankers yet.  He told our banker that we needed immediate access to our money so we could get home.

“I can’t do that, sir,” replied the banker.

“Yes, you can,” explained my husband, “When you say you can’t, you mean you won’t or it is against your policy, or is it not your procedure.  Let me talk to your supervisor.”

In a stunning example of international detente, my husband put the two bankers on the phone together and told them to work it out.  In about 10 minutes they accomplished the impossible – they arranged it so the original transaction never happened.  Marie started breathing normally and I breathed a sigh of relief too.

As for my husband, he had never been more attractive to me then he was at that moment.