When I got up this morning and realized this was going to be my first official short sleeved shirt day, I rummaged through the shirts I had not worn since fall and the first I pulled out was a Nike shirt, not my style at all to wear a shirt that says anything on it, my wife bought it for me I think, at any rate, I put it on with the thought that if any of my smart alec friends saw it I would catch all kinds of crap over it. I had intended to pretty much isolate myself for the day, planting corn and if time allowed going around fence. However about 10am it dawned on me that my line of credit was up for renewal at the bank and I had not done a financial statement for them. They are very lenient, but I figured it would be better if I took care of it on or before the May 1 due date, so I hopped into the pickup and headed to the local bank.
Without naming our town, I can tell you it is quite small, 900 people tops. We consider people up to 5 miles away to be neighbors, and in many cases we have known each other entire lifetimes. This does breed a certain familiarity, for better or worse. I get along quite well with my local banker, and as I filled out the financial statement and other paperwork we talked about a wide range of things, from corn planting, to cattle, to my UK trip. Along about 11:15 or so, my cell phone rang.....it was a fellow telling me that I should restrict my conversations in the bank to banking, and not my England trip(he was standing in the bank grinning at me through the office door when I turned around. I told him he shouldn't eavesdrop on people when they are banking, he might hear something extremely sensitive.
We finished up about noon, and as I was in town anyway I went over to the bar with the banker to eat lunch, this is the only place to eat in our town, and I do so frequently. We sit at long tables that seat about 12 or so, and generally you know everyone there, so the conversation gets fairly lively. The standard first question is always, "what have you been doing today" to which I replied "banking". I always tell everyone I am on the brink of bankruptcy, and when I am in the bank and my loan officer is not there, I generally ask if he is out foreclosing on me, troubling part is the tellers have started replying "we think so". I gave my standard spiel of how after I begged and begged, the bank extended my loan for another year. My banker then piped up "it was really close, but we decided to let Brian go another year, for one reason" to which I stated and questioned at the same time, "my wife's job?". "Nope" he said, "your new Nike endorsement". It brought down the house, I suppose you needed to be there, and realize how "non-Nike" I am for it to be as funny to you as it was to the 11 other goobers sitting at my table.
I was really proud of the interest rate too, until I heard on the radio the Fed dropped it another quarter this afternoon, about an hour after we drew up the paperwork. As always, my timing was just a little off.