[Shotgun wedding]

Last night my bank, teetering on the edge, was eaten by JP Morgan.

It’s weird, though, because I’ve been banking there since I was a kid. I think I opened my account with money I got for 8th grade graduation. They gave me a debit card with a Visa logo when I was in high school.

I’m glad this part is over. I think I can stop worrying for now. I trust that the transfer will be seamless, and if it’s not, I have a safety net in the credit union. It’ll be a pain, but okay.

WaMu was a local bank that exploded. But they were a good place to work for, and a good place to bank with. I had three strange things happen to my account in the 15+ years that I banked with them. Checks were stolen, and they noticed the inconsistency and called me before letting anything hit my account. A weird charge showed up from an online gambling site, and they reversed it immediately. And when a major purchase I made wasn’t delivered before that division of Sears went bankrupt, they reversed that charge as well. They seemed psychic about what was an accurate transaction and what wasn’t. I never had my account frozen during international travel, for example, or had to argue that no, really, I did intend to buy that MacBook.

I’ll be the first to admit that I know nothing about finance. But I know that the customer service in the retail centers was ace, and I thank all those folks on the ground for over fifteen years of worry-free banking. I kick all the executives in the shins for making me do all fifteen years worth of worrying in the past month instead.

Please, enjoy your multi-billion dollar signing bonuses while your underpaid tellers and I fret about if we’ll have access to our rent money or not. No problem. Friends of the family indeed.