CONTINUING... surprises & changes (Part 139h)

CONTINUING... surprises & changes (Part 139h)

It was almost 3:30pm before the door finally opened. When it did a few of the Trustees came out to use the rest room so the meeting didn’t get started right away. To save time the reading of the minutes was bypassed as were the details of the July financial report. Normally, the mortgage submissions were the last item on the agenda but after a motion, duly passed, they were moved up. J J came in and presented the items and, even though I’d only attended a handful of these meetings, I was puzzled by how quickly they were approved. I think even J J was taken aback by how rapidly they moved through the list.

By the time the agenda item titled ”Old Business“ came up the meeting was less than twenty minutes old. The first item was to be a final report on the gift campaign. However, one Trustee made a motion to table it and it was seconded. There were a few other reports that were also tabled. Finally, the Chairman of the Board announced that Gee, the trustee/attorney, would be presenting the salary committee’s final proposal concerning changes to the bank’s employee retirement plan. That was the item I was primed for both on a personal level as well as to provide specific facts if needed. Before Gee made his proposal ”Polak Joe’ stood up and demanded to know why the bank was taking on such an obligation (returning all the monies paid into the retirement system) for no obvious benefit to the bank as a whole. Gee ruled him out of order and reminded him that under the sanctions that the Board had placed him he had no voice or vote on any matter brought before the members. Joe continued to stand and to challenge a few of the members directly to give a reason why this should be done. Gee, now getting a little upset, told him to sit down or be asked to leave. With that a member stood up and told him to “Shut up!”. At first I thought there was going to be a fist fight.

Joe sat down and order was restored. The proposal was made and before any discussion could take place one member made a motion to accept it and another seconded the motion. It was after that when the discussion took place. I learned one thing by that maneuver... get the motion made and seconded before opening the topic to discussion. Once a motion was made and seconded, regardless of how the discussion tended to go, it had to be acted upon... and it was. In spite of some negative comments made by a few members, the motion passed seven to four. As I said I had all kinds of information had I been asked as well as one personal piece... the amount of my check if I was to receive it at the end of the month. It was over $1,100. I think I took about three deep breaths after the vote.

However, the naysayers still had some fight in them and they put forth another motion to delay payment until after the first of the year. They won that one by a six to five margin. My happiness became quickly tempered. I’d come up with the perfect presentation for Elle concerning the purchase of the car but it was predicated on getting my hands on the money around the end of the month. Now it was ‘back to the drawing board’.

With that item out of the way it was on to new business... and the answer to my question of what had been transpiring all day up in the Board room. Bert, (the president) had received a call from the State banking department that the branch application had been given tentative approval. As soon as the chairman of the branch committee heard he called the members together to review the architects renderings for what the branch would look like. They had spent the morning trying to decide which one looked the best. I sat there wondering why it had been such a secret when everybody knew they were waiting for approval. It was just another item for me to add to my ever growing list of things that the Trustees did that didn’t make sense (at least to me).

Of course, the whole Board wanted to see which design the committee had chosen so they got the rendering out and spread it on the table. It didn’t take long for some of the men who weren’t on that committee to ask to see the other drawings and that led to more wrangling. Finally, the Chairman of the Board announced that it was approaching 6pm. That was when one of the Trustees who’d wanted to see the other drawings made a motion to call a special meeting in order to let all the Trustees see all of the drawings and then to have all of the members vote on which one would be chosen. It took a little time before that motion was passed and by the time I let the last Board member out the back door it was after 6:30pm.

I went back to my desk to clear it off and was sitting there thinking about some of the idiots who were in charge of overseeing the fortunes of the bank. These men were supposed to be leaders in the business community. I was sitting there shaking my head when Ward, the man who owned the company that cleaned the bank each night, walked up. That told me it was definitely time to go home... not that I wanted to face Elle and tell her about the car.

Pulling in the driveway I took a couple of deep breaths. As I approached the top I saw the station wagon was gone. Approaching the screen door to the kitchen I saw a piece of paper taped to it. Aurelia was having a pool party for her kids and their friends.. and my two older girls were among them. That was something I really didn’t understand... why have a pool with all that work and expense when you had two perfectly good, clean bodies of water to swim in at no cost. But, to the kids it was something different and exciting. Inside I hoped to find something to eat but the counter top was bare and there was nothing in the refrigerator that looked like it was ready to warm up. While changing out of my suit I had an idea. One of the guys who had gone to school with Elle had recently gotten out of the service. He and his father had purchased a small restaurant and decided to offer pizzas as a specialty. I felt like pizza!

Normally I would use the downstairs toilet but I realized that it had been since 2pm or so since I’d last gone so walked down the hall. There was no reason to look in the tub but for some reason I did... and there was a pair of Elle’s shorts and a couple of panties lying there on the bottom, obviously wet. I looked at them longingly, wondering how long it would take for me to get back in her good graces and to be able to have some ‘wet fun’ again with her.

To be continued...