This is the story of how I waited two weeks for a telephone appointment, missed it, messed up, gave up, and settled up.

I have been making arrangements for new window coverings. The windows have been measured and colours have been chosen. The representative wanted to know when I could pay for the deposit and I asked for some forbearance while I moved some savings from one account to another. She was happy to oblige.

Initially, I thought I would use some of my savings in bank A but then decided that I no longer needed a dormant account that I had in bank B and would use those monies, instead. Sounds simple, right? Well, no.

My first instinct is always to use my computer to figure things out and to communicate with businesses. Telephone calls and voice-activated devices are not my favourite things, probably because they don’t always understand me and I have limited patience for corporate telephone menus. As such, I went online to bank B to ask them to close my accounts. I dutifully followed all the links only to discover that I could not close my account online. I had to make an appointment.

OK, thought. I can do that. I was asked to choose between an in-person or a telephone appointment, and, given that I had a choice, I selected a telephone appointment. I picked the earliest possible appointment even though it was two weeks away. That is where I first went wrong. Almost as soon as I confirmed that choice, I had misgivings. I had a hunch that they would ask me to come in to the branch anyway, and that hunch was echoed by my youngest child who, when we chatted about it a few days later, had the same thought.

This morning, after a rare good night’s sleep, I was getting ready to go to my second Gentle Yoga class when I realized I had missed a call from bank B. Wait? What? I thought this was going to happen tomorrow! Not only had I got the date wrong but I had put my phone in silent mode in order to avoid the 7:00 AM nuisance calls I have been getting lately, and I had not reset it after I woke up. So, my phone calls were going to voicemail at exactly the time when I was due to get the call I had been anticipating for two weeks.

On reflection, I now realize that the date misalignment occurred because I am a visual learner and the bank’s online calendar ended on a Friday while my calendar ends on a Saturday. I had entered the appointment at the end of my week, not theirs. They did send me a reminder, but I was so sure I had this in hand that I gave it little notice.

As soon as I realized my mistake I tried to reach the bank B representative by phone. She had left a text/voice message (something new to me!) with her phone number, and I tried to call her on that number several times. The problem I had was that the bank’s phone menu asked me, amongst other things, to spell her first name and then press #. I did that. Then I did that again. And again. It was on a loop. I could not get past the #. I tried reaching the bank representative online, with no success, and went back to trying to reach her on the phone. Once again I was spelling her name to no avail.

While I was doing this, she was trying to reach me, but all her calls went to voicemail because I was on the line! I have, clearly, found a flaw in the system. Two people who are trying to reach one another can both be thrown into the abyss of telephonic failure simultaneously.

Ultimately, we both emailed each other and she advised me to “pop in” to the branch. I pointed out that the website had told me I needed an appointment, but told her I would go there anyway. When, after my yoga class, I arrived at bank B this afternoon, there were two tellers on duty both dealing with customers who had complicated issues to resolve. As I waited, the line-up grew to about ten or twelve people.

When I got to the counter and told the person there that I wanted to close my accounts, she took a step back and clearly was not prepared to address this issue. She asked why I wanted to do this. I said I just wanted to simplify my financial arrangements, and I avoided explaining my window coverings and bank B’s service charges. (Did I mention their service charges? Never mind. They are now secondary to the issue in hand.)

Fortunately, someone else who seemed to have authority was hovering nearby and he ushered me to another desk where he cheerfully closed my accounts. I had not needed an appointment, after all.

As I walked out of the bank with a banker’s cheque in my purse, I couldn’t decide whether I was more relieved or frustrated. I could have done this two weeks ago, if only I had walked to the bank. Sigh.