Edwin and Mavis O’Connor had been watching those Scotiabank commercials for the last year where “ordinary” people went in with their financial documents and walked out happy, “richer than they thought they were.” Edwin thought it was time he and Mavis did the same thing.
Mavis decided to go immediately to the media to complain when it didn’t go as well for them. “Ed and I gathered up all our papers and made an appointment. Ed was so excited!”
“Yeah,” said Ed. “I thought, here we go, we’re going to have money we didn’t think we had. Guess what? That ad is not true.”
“Well, not for us anyway,” said Mavis, putting her arm around her husband’s back. “Poor Ed. He’s been so depressed ever since.”
When pressed for details, Ed just hung his head but Mavis jumped in. “When the lady in the bank took a look at our financial papers, she said we should file for bankruptcy! Can you imagine?! She said with everything that we owe in total compared to our income, it will take us twenty years to get anywhere near saving even $1.00!”
Ed added, “I don’t know what she’s talking about. Mavis works at the Dollar Store 40 hours a week and I work at the Wal-mart as a greeter 35 hours a week. Every month, after we make all our credit card payments, mortgage payments, bank line of credit payment, overdraft and bank fees, utilities, taxes and such we have $50.00 left over. Enough to get us gas to get to the food bank. If we didn’t have the credit cards, overdraft and the line of credit, we’d never get things we needed like a new roof on our 50 year old house, repairs to the leaking bathtub and repairs to the 2000 Chevy Cavalier.”
Mavis rolled her eyes, “Of course we could save $1.00. Ed was hoping for a win-fall though; that maybe the bank had some secret way of finding money somehow. I guess that bank is just for rich people. We just wanted every other ordinary couple to know and not get their hopes us like we did.”