I had to go to a bank twice the other day.

The first time was to discuss re-financing the roof over my head and after a few minutes of discussing products, fees and charges, I felt like the ‘personal lending manger’ was rogering my arse with a giant carrot while convincing me to sign over my last dollar for a few drops of lube. And the entire time she beamed one of those artificially-installed, all-teeth-but-no-eye news presenter smiles without blinking. I was scared she wouldn’t let me out without frisking my pockets for change in case I really could afford the ‘premium package’ to pay more for things I didn’t know I needed.

I returned later in the day to hand over the completed paperwork, signed with the blood dripping from the kidney I surgically removed and sold on eBay to fund the re-finance. Luckily, Robo-Smiling-Butt-Rogerer was locked up with another hapless victim, but no staff were at the front counter to deal with simple matters such as dropping off my application form.

I joined the snaking teller queue because I could see two women behind the reinforced screens in the distance and perhaps they would accept my paperwork without ripping out a heart or lung in exchange (f#$kers wouldn’t take the brain; they only accept working organs).

A couple of metres behind me in the line was a large man with a small human attached to his arm. The child of should-know-better age was screaming as if his ears had been removed as collateral for his dad’s new car loan. The boy decided to take flight from his father’s clutches and ran to the front door, blocking  customers from coming inside and getting himself jammed in the automatic door when the sensor gave out. It squashed him not too hard, not too soft, but just enough to increase his wailing to make the rest of us beg to have our ears lopped and blocked. Dad didn’t want to lose his place in the queue and reasoned with his child from his place in the line. Didn’t work. Kiddlywinks screamed louder when the door opened and shut on him again and the father reasoned at an even higher volume in a battle of who could get murdered in the bank by the customers first.

Is there a protocol to ‘correct and direct’ rowdy offspring belonging to others, or take frustration out directly on parents who let junior get away relentless screaming as a form of attention seeking? My theory is if a child is of the age he or she can talk, he or she can listen. I make sport of pulling up queue-jumpers and morons who can’t park their cars in the white lines, but get nervous dealing with unruly kids in case the parents smack my chops. And I don’t want to deal with the parents directly because they’ll take offence at having their parenting skills challenged; the kid will continue to get away with blue murder while mum and dad smack my chops anyway.

Crank-o-meter: frazzled and broke