Note: I’m a columnist for the Reader Weekly, an alt-weekly newspaper in Duluth, MN. Every Tuesday I post a new column.

 
It’s the bank’s job to take my change. It’s their job, damn it. If I’m a member of the bank and I have $37.40 in pennies, and I’d like to change it for $37.40 in nickels, that should not be disputed. If I would like the teller to then build a little house out of my nickels, that should not be disputed either.

I am The Customer, and The Customer is always right. If I put my money into the bank, their tellers should do anything I say. If I walk in one day and proclaim aloud, “You know what would make this bank better? Everyone wearing cowboy hats,” then the next time I arrive the whole bank should be wearing cowboy hats.

Being a member of the bank is not like a membership for book of the month or rotary clubs. A bank membership involves all my money, reader. Being a member means giving them everything I have. I’m giving my bank more benefit of the doubt than I give my own parents. This willingness on my part should mean something. It should grant me their upmost respect and service, even though I haven’t had an account balance above $80 in nearly seven years.

Yet the respect and service are not there. All across the country, banks are getting rid of their change counting machines. If you bring a jar of change into a bank, they’ll either ask you to roll it yourself or give you a huge guilt trip for making them roll it. It’s your job, you filthy bastards! You’re getting paid to serve your bank members. You should feel lucky that I’m requesting a little house of nickels instead of a handjob in the parking lot.

Seriously, I’m not asking the bank tellers to get me coffee. I’m not asking them to open the door for me as I walk in or hand me a towel after I wash my hands in the bathroom. In fact, I’m not even asking them to have a public bathroom, which most don’t. I’m just asking them to do their job by taking my money.

Last week a teller told me to take my change to a Coinstar machine at the local supermarket. I’m not paying a machine nearly 10 percent of my change to turn it into bills. That’s what I joined the damn bank for. I became a member so I could unapologetically be one of those douchebags who brings in a gaint jar of pennies and then uses the resulting $8 to buy booze across the street.

I read online that you can hack the Coinstar machines by requesting an Amazon.com gift card – they don’t take out a fee for that option – and then unplugging the machine’s internet cord while it’s processing. When the machine can’t connect to the internet to add money to your gift card, it instead gives you cash without charging a fee. But that’s theft, reader. I’m not a thief, I’m a drunk and a scoundrel, which is entirely different. I’m not going to commit a felony just because my bank is full of Marxists who believe no one should have to roll change for anyone else.

Some banks are even using the Coinstar trend to screw their customers. These banks not only make you roll your own coins, but they then charge you if you have more than five or six rolls. So you’re doing all the work yourself and paying a fee for your trouble. The owners of these banks should be drug out into the street and raped like animals.

It’s a good thing I’m not sober enough to be elected president of this country, because If I was, the scam artists who come up with this tripe – executives, shareholders, and stock analysts – would be raped at an astonishing rate. Wall Street and its surrounding neighborhoods would become as feared as the darkest cells of Attica Prison.

But I don’t want that, reader. I just want bills for my change. If you hear some psychotic drunk Irishman screaming obscenities when you walk into your bank this week, that’s probably me. Don’t just backpedal slowly out the door, like most my readers do when they finally meet me in person. Stride up to the front and take a stand for your rights. We’re bank members, damn it, and we deserve to be treated like it.