Dear bank manager,
Sorry to break this to you but you're not my friend. Never have been like Hamish and Andy or VB. Or even Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O.
And to be perfectly frank, I don't want my bank to be my friend.
I'm not particularly keen on coming into the branch with the pens on chains or string and the hour long financial health checks you insist on giving me. I'd prefer to do it online or at an ATM. Or visit the proctologist.
You may do wonderful work for charity. And I know it's great supporting charities for those kids I read about on page three of the Herald Sun in hospital with tubes up their noses.
The same goes for supporting those lifesavers in budgie smugglers flying around in brightly coloured helicopters or encouraging women to save money.
But you know what? Banks aren't friendly and nice like your advertising suggests.
I know you've cut my fees. But you trick me with an account that has no overdraft but will still overdraw, allowing you to charge me $60,000 each time it happens. There's the crafty small print on the credit card that means I pay interest on everything from day one and a bit more - just for the heck of it.
What I wish you'd do is be truthful like you used to be.
Sure, Amanda Keller was mildy amusing in those ads. But you behaved like Helen Keller and were deaf and blind to me.
There was Billy Connolly who isn't as funny as he used to be. The patriotic sports people at the Olympics. And a soap opera that frankly wasn't a patch on the Nescafé one.
And what was all that Mad Max shit all about?
You pretend to be all mushy and friendly and soft. But if I wanted that I'd buy a Labrador or a giant pack of double length Kleenex Cottonelle toilet paper.
I want you to keep my money safe with yours and earn shitloads of interest for me. I want you to lend me enough to buy a house and - on my credit card - those $950 shoes from that shop next to the trendy Isakaya Den in Melbourne.
You see I know you are a greedy bastard. Why can't you come out with it and tell me that you are my greedy bastard?
luv,
Ed
Dear Bank Manager
29 January 2010