THEY SAY POOR PEOPLE NEVER WIN A JACKPOT

THEY SAY POOR PEOPLE NEVER WIN A JACKPOT
When you walk into the building of the place where I work, you are dead tired. The building has no elevator. If you are forty seven like me, you make the last five flights of stairs and feel like collapsing on the last step. That was how I felt when I walked up the stairs. I could tell that some people had clocked in when I saw the red and blue ribbons that were off the wall. Everybody took theirs when they went to the machines. We had to wear them and make sure that the customers see them. Our name tags were not enough.
When I saw the customer pull in hers towards me, I put on the usual plastered smile. I had learnt to really do it as if a lot of happiness was all over me for having seen her pull up at my station and take out the items she had bought. She looked at the Enquirer and put in on the groceries, and I nodded under my breath, “God bless, the reader of the Enquirer.” She then looked at the next “People” and put it on the groceries. I relaxed when I saw all the printed material made it into her cart because I knew that it would be quite some time before I did anything that was the usual. I had something interesting to watch. My customer was not the usual drab housewife. She was trim, trendy and seemed to have it going for her. So why was she raking the store up into her mind? Was she going to get the time to read all this? I was glad there were people like this to watch. My math did not need to be put to the test all the time. “Ping” I would put this under the sensitizer and the number would pop up on my screen. The only problem I had now was waiting for her to finally make up her mind.
I was shocked when she put the card on the table. I had never seen this one. “Wachovia,” I had heard of that when I was in Indiana or Michigan, some state way out there in the Midwest where I had worked. So she had a card with Wachovia, I let her swipe the card and said under my breath, “that was an interesting one.”
She smiled back and said, “they sure give you a lot of credit you know, ten thousand. I am using it for the eleventh time and I still have money on it. They never give me problems. They said I will not pay interest for three months when I started. If they did, my husband would have a fit. I steal it from him and buy whatever, wherever.” She went on and on while I finalized putting her loot in plastic bags so that she can go. I looked at the next customer and realized that he was bored. He was blind and did not go far when shopping. He just went to the cigarette shelf and picked a pack of (Cigarettes) and then made it to the counter with the box. Always the same price, yet he complained about the money as if it could even change.
“Me again. Paying six dollars and fifty cents. I told you one day I will lick this habit because it is stealing from me. One day I will be honest with myself.
“Hey Todd, how many cigarettes do you smoke a day?” I asked.
“Manatji, it is you again. It is you asking me? Listen. I have cut down. I used to smoke twenty four cigarettes. Chain smoking as if I was in a competition with each box. Now I have cut down to four cigarettes a day. I call that an achievement,” he said reaching out for the box.
“Do you want a plastic bag?” I asked and then held out the box to him.
“You know that I always come when I really need it. You are just teasing me,” he said when he heard me laugh. I pushed the cigarette box into his hand when I saw that he was moving his hand all over. I waited for the next customer and the next and the next. I got out for lunch and walked to the nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken and bout a meal for the last two dollars I had. When I walked back to the worker’s lounge it was half past and I knew I still had five minutes before I resumed work.
I decided to go to my apartment and rest for a while. My apartment was two blocks from the building. I entered the building and turned to the right and saw my box. It had my name, exactly the way it had been when I arrived at the apartment complex. Even though there was an “a” after the first letter in my surname, the landlord had written,I had not changed it, but just thought each time I went to the office to pay rent, I would always tell him, “silent M,” until he got the fact that there was no vowel after the first letter in my name.
I carelessly picked up the mail and then went and put it on the coffee table. I did not like the clutter that was caused by the junk mai, so I sorted it and threw it into the garbage can. I was throwing it in there when I saw it. There was an interesting envelope that showed a greenish-yellowish color on its window. “I,ll look at it when I get back from word.” I said that to myself and then walked out. I realized that I had left my purse and walked back. This time I decided that I would take that letter with me to work, to read in the last five minutes. I did not like bills. They caused me to be sick. I hoped that this was not another bill.
The road to work led me through the apartments. I walked past and headed for my workplace. It was getting close to the hour when I stepped into the door and my boss was already waiting near the entrance. “I’m not going to be in today, I am asking you to take care of the counting of the money.” my boss was the typical “boss from hell.” I read this on a website and it really helped me to understand the type. I remember yelling at the top of my voice that day. “Eureka!I found it. Just the name I have been looking for.” When my boss from hell came in she gave orders even on the things that had been done. When she had time, she was on twitter and facebook with her friends. I really hated social media because I felt that it should have never been invented. It made me angry to count the money when I could see that she was in her office talking to her friends. The answer was always the same, “Something keeps coming up you know. You know the job. One of these days you will be promoted. “Promotion, my foot.” I always said when I finished with my work. I never had time to do what I wanted. I was always making sure the company was making more money. I vowed that one of these days, I will have to face up to her and talk about my promotion.
When I left home at five, I was exhausted. I was eager to read my mail, get down to watching Wimbledon tennis, and then retire. I took the letter which was in my bed and read it. I read it a couple of times. I checked if it was really addressed to me. It had an official address of some place out there in Philadelphia.
Settlement ID: 002500189
This is how the letter reads: United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennyslavania and Comptroller of the Currency of the United States
:-[ P.O. Box 37765
Philadelphia, PA 19101- 7765
To: Me

Enclosed is the payment based on the claim form you submitted as part of the Settlement in Faloney v Wanchovia Bank. No. 07-1455. The amount that we are receiving was determined in accordance with the Settlement Agreement approved by the Court.

If you have any questions about the legitimacy of this check, please call 1-866-680-6659. For further information, please see the following websites:
http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/release/2008-143.htm
http:/www.usdoj.gov/usao/pae/wachovia.html
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/01/wachovia.shtm
There were many questions on my mind. One of them was, how did this happen to me? There was no reason to doubt that it had happened. I picked up the phone and called my bank of eight years ago and they said they had closed my file. I wanted to find out what had happened. They also wanted me to pay them thirteen dollars for the search. Why did I want to do a search about something that had happened a long time ago? I was not sure. I think, by then, I was used to not letting things go. I felt that in this example I had seen the good results of somebody not letting things go. If Faloney had done this “on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated,” what was I going to do? I had failed myself by not balancing my check book and was not doing a good job even after this. What else could I do? I vowed that I would write a short story about this, so that other people can learn about what happed to a woman who could not balance her check book eight years ago.

I also wantged to findnd out who Faloney was and what all this was about. I had received hundreds of scams on my email, but this was a cheque. It was real. I went to my bank thinking that they would reject it and they did not. Out there in the world was a person called Faloney and she/he had done something I should thank him/her for. I vowed that I would never rest till I found him/her.
The website led me to one of the lawyers who had represented the case and I told him that I wanted to say “Thank you.” He passed on the message and said that he would tell Faloney and the others that I had called. I was happy that I had done this. I closed the case that afternoon in March when I put down the receiver.
When I went to the bank and deposited my check, I was sure that this was not a scam and also that I had not won a jackpot, but learned that banks do things we cannot find out about if we do not go through the entire statement. I vowed to comb my statement with the finest tooth when next I next one. Please do the same and also BALANCE your checkbook.
Written by the author: for all women who still do not balance the check book.
Sarah Mkhonza