A Modest Proposal: My ADHD Solution for Banks

Today’s episode is THE GREAT SAFE DEPOSIT BOX CAPER. The gentleman pictured below was breaking open my safe deposit box this morning, because I lost the damned safe deposit box keys. AGAIN. For the second year in a row. More ADHD Taxes paid. Yes, I’ve had the notification letter from the bank since last fall, but, true to form, it took me until five days prior to an out-of-state move to finally muster enough panic to book the locksmith to drill it open. Procrastination adrenaline is what drives me.

This was no easy drill-out. The locksmith didn’t have my southpaw advantage, so he struggled with leveraging the lock-picking tools while working so close to the left wall. I was half-tempted to offer assistance, because I might’ve learned something about locksmithery, but I refrained. My brain can only store so much information. Especially now.

While standing there waiting for a good 30 minutes, I pondered why the bank didn’t have a Disney Fast Pass for opening your safe deposit box, and how that might work. I fielded some text messages. I took a call from my doctor, who gave me the very bad news that no pharmacies had my ADHD stimulant med in stock (and I’m down to the last 2 pills) and, did I mention I’M MOVING OUT OF STATE ON SATURDAY…UGH!

And that’s when I decided the bank manager deserved to hear my staccato-paced, idea hamster list of improvement ideas for how he should run his bank. These ideas would help me, my fellow ADHDers, and anyone prone to losing their keys. Here was our conversation:

“Surely I’m not the only person who loses their safe deposit box keys?”

“No, you’re not.”

“I think you should offer a service for ADHDers and forgetful folks like me where we just leave our safe deposit keys with YOU. When we need to open that box, we just show YOU two forms of I.D. and YOU hand us the key. Surely the security for storing keys is better here than at my house?”

(I said that last part about the security to butter him up a bit. I gave him every opportunity to respond, “You’re right, Denise, and stop calling me Shirley.” He would have had a customer for life! But alas, sadly, he kneweth not the funniest Airplane film lines.)

“It is.” His chest puffed out, the pride in his voice unmistakable. YES. HIS bank was SECURE.

I persisted — a pitbull with a bone. “If the local pub can keep a mug with my name on it, just hanging there for whenever I need it, surely you have room to store a tiny key for me whenever I need it. You know, like how car valets have that little key organizer thingy with the numbers…?”

I’m convinced I saw his bank manager brain wheels spinning. I didn’t give him a moment to insert any silly objections.

“What about biometrics? A fingerprint, like for a gun safe? Or an eyeball print?”

“That would be cool.” I sensed he was warming to my ideas. “Very Minority Report,” he murmured, thinking deeply about my suggestions.

My thought balloon: Ummm…, no, Mr. Bank Manager. CLEAR already uses your eyeball print. This is yesterday’s tech. What’s more, Microsoft’s LinkedIn demands your biometric data now to get LinkedIn-Certified (which makes me question how much value I place on that certification. The phrase “jumped the shark” comes to mind.)

I continued being helpful. “Or, what about using the same PIN number as my debit card? If I showed you my I.D., my debit card, and gave you my four-digit PIN, wouldn’t that work?”

“It could. I’ve seen some safe deposit boxes where they have a keypad instead of a lock, but then the customers forget the code, so there you have the same problem all over again.”

Now this is where I get so frustrated. Why do bureaucrats have to add unnecessary cock blocks when a simpler solution remedies most situations? I have zero patience for low-vibration thinking.

I countered: “But IF that happened, why couldn’t you just GIVE them the keypad code once they showed you two forms of I.D.?”

“I suppose we could…”

The locksmith interjected: “SUCCESS!” You’d have thunk the stone just rolled away from Jesus’ tomb, he was so elated. But the locksmith was probably just happy to disrupt my incessant brain dump. He had heard ENOUGH.

The silver door popped open. (For a better user experience, I think safe deposit boxes should have some fun sound effect when you open sesame that door. Perhaps an Asian gong?)

The bank manager gingerly proffered me the flat, narrow box to open, as if he were Downton Abbey’s butler holding hummingbird’s eyebrow under glass…minus the white gloves. I felt adult-ish…for a moment.

“What do you think is in there?”

“Nothing! I completely FORGOT I had this safe deposit box until the invoice letter arrived in the mail last fall.”

He seemed crestfallen.

As he held the box, I popped the top open.

“Hey! There’s a paperclip!” he announced gleefully, as if this somehow bested Geraldo’s findings in Al Capone’s cave. I could see his point. I once read about this guy who started out with a paperclip and kept trading up until he eventually got a house, or something like that. It made the national news. But I had no intention of doing all that haggling over a bloody paperclip. Did I mention I have an OUT OF STATE MOVE THIS SATURDAY? And yet, here I am, writing this episode, procrastinating on packing so I can trigger more panic-mode adrenaline.

What is WRONG with me?

Oh, yeah — dopamine deficiency. And no Vyvanse on the horizon. So, wish me…luck?