Money Matters (Part 2)

Just like the doors, the entrance hall of the building is huge. It's artificially lit and the light grey walls are covered in paintings that are disguised as windows (purpose behind that is unknown). The floor is made of black and white tiles like a chess board. There're some wooden benches to sit down and wait while the counter clerks are busy, which luckily wasn't the case here, as there was only a zebra in a black suit ahead of me. I settled down on a particularly enticing white tile with exotic red engravings and waited until it was my turn.

Waiting in this place usually results in listening to the conversations between customers and employees. The zebra seemed fairly experienced in dealing with the clerk, expertly navigating through the unnecessarily long processes without stepping into any of the generously provided loopholes. The fox in the counter next to me though... Oof.

I was late to the conversation, so I had to piece things together. Apparently won the lottery, either him or his dad (not too sure). Then, in euphoric mood, went up to the bank to deposit the cheque. To nobody's surprise, he got ripped off. If I had to guess, it went as follows:

"Hello, I want to deposit this cheque."

"Can you give me the cheque?"

"Yeah, take it."

...

Aaaaaaand it's gone. Now they were arguing over semantics.

"I didn't mean to gift it to you!"

"You said I can take it!"

"You have no proof, I'm going to call my lawyer!"

(They have cameras and microphones for exactly this occasion by the way...) "Hey."

"Sure, go ahead, but please step aside so I can attend the next customer." "HEEEEEEY!"

Only at this point did I realize that the cheesy "HEEEEEEY!" was meant for me. I would like to attribute this to my uncanny passive perception and not to the fact that I got pushed aside. Slightly annoyed but still in an okay mood (considering the circumstances, I decided to lower my standards), I turned my head to face the 'hooligan' who had the audacity to disturb my journalistic curiosity.

The inconsiderate fiend turned out to be an unusual rat. First of all, there was no stench that usually accompanies rats. Then the moustache... Its whiskers were curled up into an imperial style moustache. I mean, come on. And a small patch of the hair on its head was coloured in green. I couldn't quite tell, but here I thought that I'd seen that guy before.

A loud "HEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!" coupled with panicked shoving disturbed my thoughts. I figured I might as well ask what he wants so I responded with the classic "sup?".

I could have never guessed his answer though:

"Move aside, you are standing on my tile."

...

I was slightly irritated at this point.

"Is this your tile? Does it have your name on it?"

I couldn't foresee that this madrat actually did it. The answer was precisely "Yes.".

And he was right. Upon giving the fancy red engravings a second look, I noticed that it resembled letters. There was a small issue though... I figured I could solve the problem by asking:

"What's your name, mister rat?"

"Tyler"

Yeah, now that I knew what he was trying to write here, I only needed a little bit of fantasy and good faith to interpret the scribbling as "TylEr". I didn't want to give my spot up though, I had been waiting for quite a while already. (I know that the time spent waiting is a sunk cost and that you shouldn't base your decisions on sunk costs, but the next best action instead. But I had a point to prove here.) Thankfully, my quick wits didn't fail me in this pressing moment. I decided to give him a knowing look and responded:

"Yes, you are indeed permitted to stay on this tile."

Judging by the red marker he was carrying in his left hand, he probably wrote his name there himself. Which would explain why he was so confident in his action. He never imagined to meet someone as stubborn as me though. Generally, you can annoy people so much that they'll just move aside and let you be. Not turtles though! We are immovable rocks. Shields that deflect anything and everything! Sadly, he didn't quite understand this and continued to pester me:

"Move aside, my tile!"

I decided to bullshit my way out of this conversation. I told him that my name was, in fact, the same as his. Logically speaking, I had the same right to stand on the tile as he did. Now that's a train of thought he couldn't argue against, which lead to him casting doubt on my claims. He never met another Tyler, so obviously my name couldn't be Tyler. I had to give it to him, he was smarter than he looked.

But! Not so fast! If you start with a small lie and want to win the argument, you have to be able to commit all the way. Go ham or go home. Evade pesky investigations with even bigger lies. Bludgeon doubters with quantity. Spin a story and add details when needed. If you are faster at talking than your counterpart is at checking your story, then you win. Doesn't matter how outrageous the story becomes. If the conversation partner gets the impression that you dump so much info, nobody can think of that in a fly, then the only conclusion possible is that you are telling the truth. I'm a journalist, this is the spirit of my vocation! And so it began. (Please don't apply these lessons to your own life.)

"You haven't heard of me? I'm travelling Tyler, the tale-telling turtle! I've told countless stories, started before you were even born and will still tell stories when your grandchildren will get buried. I even have my own magazine!"

He gave me a surprised and somewhat doubtful look.

"You really haven't seen any of it? Unlike me, because I've seen it all. Well, almost. There's still plenty of places to explore. Someone told me about a country in the far north, they have houses over five times bigger than the tallest building in this city! Seems pretty unbelievable, right? And there's more to it! Apparently, they have rivers filled with salted caramel. Do you know why they have to put salt in the rivers? It's like in the winter, when the streets are frozen and the government applies salt on the roads so that you don't trip. The caramel they have in the rivers there needs salt to run at reasonable speeds. That's why they put salt into it!"

Yeah, he had no idea what was going on anymore.

Someone came to his aid though. A female porcupine. This is where things clicked in my head. I had seen this couple before. She's the wife of the rat. I glanced at the counter and confirmed my suspicions. The guy attending the zebra was the same guy who tried to cheat me out of my change and destroyed my coconuts while grocery shopping a while ago. And just like it had been in the shop back then, the parents of the clerk immediately seized the bank property for themselves. Including the tile I was resting on. Annoying.

Where was I? Ah yeah, she was madly giggling (presumably at the stupidity of her husband, who got completely overwhelmed by my random eruption of nonsense) and said she had heard of me and was surprised to meet me in this tiny bank. (Tiny bank? Sarcasm much?) She was a fan and read over twenty of my stories and wanted to hear one I hadn't shared yet.