High surf Crashes HSBC SWIFT link At Rabbit Zoo with popcorn pigeons
“A walk along the beach. It’s been a long time since we’ve visited the ocean.”
“I’ll check the tides,” I replied. “It is impossible to walk at high tide.”
“Remember that the weather forecast, Dan, warned of ‘dangerous surf’.”
“Dangerous surf? I’m planning to walk on the sand, I have no plans to swim in the ocean.” I replied, ignoring the voice in my head. ( “The best laid non-plans also go awry.&rdquo
I checked the tide table. We decided to start our hike a few hours after high tide - but well before low tide.
“Maybe we should have waited a bit longer,” I said when we reached the final (of 242) steps to the beach. “The waves are big. We will have to hug the bluffs to make it to the next stairway.”
“The tide is going out, Dan. By the time we get to the really narrow part of the beach, it will be a piece of cake.”
Boldly we started. Because the waves often washed up on the sand, we walked on top of large rocks. There is one spot where a sandstone abutment sticks out almost into the ocean (at high tide). It iwas difficult to thread our way past this obstacle. The sea was crashing along the shore, but I didn’t want my sneakers to get wet.
As we approached the narrow obstacle, I saw a strong wave. Cold salt water was rushing up the beach. The ocean was fast..
“But I am faster,” I thought. “And, unlike salt water, I can defy gravity.”
With that, I nimbly hopped onto a rock so that my ankles and socks would remain dry. Nazy, less confident shouted:
“Be careful!”
The shout diverted my attention. My sneaker slipped on a oval-shaped rock. I fell. Slowly. Elegantly. My head hit a pointed rock. My sunglasses disintegrated.
“My gosh that smarts!” I whispered. “I think I’ll just stay here for a while,” I thought resting my knees in the surf. I heard Nazy in the background. “I told you to be careful!” She shouted. Dan! You’re bleeding.” Nazy started to dab my eyebrow with her chewing gum.
“That’s not where it hurts,” I said as I slowly climbed to my feet. “I hope these stars that I’m seeing fade as quickly as a losing Super Bowl coach,” I thought.
As soon as we were sure that all was okay, we took a selfie. Then we realized that we still hadn’t made it past the obstacle. It was clear that we’d get a small bit of water on our shoes. I timed the waves and made a run for it - clearing the obstacle with no problem. The post-obstacle beach was wide, flat and sandy. Nazy joined me a few seconds later. We exchanged ‘high fives’ and began walking away from the sea. Note: Astute and careful readers will undoubtedly conclude that ‘walking away from the sea’ means that we were not watching the sea. In particular, we were not watching the ‘high surf advisory’ ocean.
“Well, my dear,” I rejoiced. “It was a challenge, but we made…”
I was nearly knocked off my feet by a wave that soaked my jeans up to my wallet pocket. Nazy, who’s wallet pocket is lower, was soaked higher.
“&#$@!!!” I said. “*&#$&^!!!!” I almost repeated. “That water is wet.”
“And cold, Dan,” Nazy replied.
Several days later, our sneakers are still wet. The shower drain is still filled with sand. And Nazy is running out of Neosporin ointment.
It was time to do something different.
When the Grand(est)son sees Monster the Cat, he gets so excited that he almost forgets to breath. So Nazy and I knew that he would be thrilled with a trip to the zoo. Melika asked us how it went.
“Your son, Mel, is a boy who is easily pleased.”
“Easily..”
“.. pleased, Melika. He thought that the rabbits were the most exciting thing he’d ever seen. He wanted to climb over the fence to pull their ears. When we stopped for a snack, he was thrilled when he discovered that the pigeons loved to pick up the popcorn he dropped on the ground.”
“But what about the big animals? The elephants and lions?”
“The lions were sleeping. The elephants just stood around doing nothing. The gorilla was a few feet away behind the glass, but even when it began to amble away, young Tiger was unfazed. He liked the noisy crow and was very interested in the snow leopard.”
“The snow leopard?”
“It’s a cat - and it’s about the same size as Monster - your cat. Your son had a great time, he was sitting up, looking and listening. I don’t think that he figured out that the elephant was an animal. And, being easily pleased, he’s just like Darius.”
Flashback
Memphis, Tennessee
It was spring, a beautiful time of year in Memphis. The azaleas were in bloom, The flowering trees were flowering. I put young Darius, who had just learned to talk, on a carrier seat at the back of my bicycle. We headed off to look at the flowers.
“So, Darius,” I asked. “What color flower do you like best?”
“Green.” He replied.
“You, my son, will be easily pleased.”
End Flashback
Present-day Darius has also some interesting challenges. He realized that the giant, too big to fail, plodding, customer-serviceless banks were gouging him with wire transfer fees. Each month he was sending a portion of his income from HSBC (in Lebanon) to Wells Fargo (in Santa Barbara). Each bank charged him $35 for this ‘service’ and an intermediary bank tacked on $20. (The Intermediary was a subsidiary of HSBC.) So, for a service that cost roughly one thousandth of a US ¢ent, these banks charged a total of $90. Naturally, Darius was..
“… outraged, Dad. The banks are ..”
“…bottom-dwelling scum,” I replied. “I get money transferred from Switzerland every week,” I thought. “I wonder if I’m getting screwed too?”
“And I’m transferring US Dollars, Dad. If I was transferring something like Swiss Francs, it would be even worse.”
“I hear you!” I replied. “Drat!” I thought.
“So, Dad, I opened an account at the American Rivera Bank in Santa Barbara. They don’t charge a wire transfer fee. For the next several months, I initiated a transfer from Lebanon to California on the 28th of the month.”
“And it worked?”
“Perfectly, Dad. It worked perfectly! So I decided to give a standing order to the HSBC International Transfer Office so that I wouldn’t have to manually handle the transfer.”
“Good idea.”
“Except that HSBC couldn't figure out what to do. They mixed up the routing number and the account number. They lost the SWIFT Code instructions.”
“So you were able to manage the transfer yourself, but HSBC’s ‘international transfer office’, the experts, couldn’t figure it out?”
“That’s right. I called their Helpdesk and got a person in Uganda who couldn’t speak English.”
“Hmm.”
“I went the HSBC office to complain in person, my ‘personal banker’ told me that it was a common problem: ‘Lebanese asking for help in Arabic are routed to Egypt to talk to someone who doesn’t speak Arabic.’”
“That’s nauseating. I read about HSBC in the news. Did you know that they can help millionaires hide money to avoid taxes, but they can’t figure out how to move your $1000 from Beirut to Santa Barbara?”
“It’s almost three weeks and they still haven’t been able to fix it. During that time, they put my money into a holding account.”
“That’s what banks do, Dar: they hold onto your money.”
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