A lot of people have been getting on their case lately, but I’m switching to Bank of America. Over the last year a forced disability, a disabled son and the financial consequences of both have brought suspense and adventure to our formerly dull lives. We haven’t been robbing Peter to pay Paul. We’ve been robbing Peter, paying Paul and pickpocketing him at the same time. Paul’s been looking at us strangely lately though, and he might be catching on.

But thanks to Bank of America, we can relax now. They recently started a credit card program for undocumented people (some might say illegal aliens, but not me). All you have to do is have no social security number, no proof of identity, no record of record of paying past debts and no evidence that you can be reached when the monthly bills are sent out. If you can show evidence of all of the above or can’t show any evidence of any of the above, everything’s going to be fine.

For starters, I’m going to the nearest Bank of America branch. When I sit down with the bank officer I’ll explain I’d like a credit card and when they ask my name, I’ll just say “I don’t know”. My wife will do the same, as will my two kids. If you think they’ll turn my kids away because they’re minors, remember – if they don’t know their ages, they can’t prove they’re minors and neither can the kids. So in the space of ten minutes, that’ll be four handshakes, four credit cards and $2,000 we don’t have now. Who knows, we might even walk out with four gift toasters for opening accounts. How can you top that? Then it’s off to the next branch and the next. If we go to 10 bank branches, that’s $20,000. Then we just start over again the next day and the day after. We won’t know who we are and neither will they. It’s like an infomercial come true. We’ll even be able to open up a fully stocked toaster shop.

Once everything’s running smoothly, we’ll have to be more careful about our personal finances. We’ll gather all our proofs of identity, any papers with our names on them: credit and debit cards; driver’s licenses; birth certificates; even the deed for the house. Then we put them through the shredder. After all, we do have a sense of right and wrong. If we say, “I don’t know” we need to have backup or more accurately, no backup.

Other people will get with the program and the future will be bright beyond our wildest dreams. Just imagine, the next time we go shopping and they ask “cash or credit”, we just say “I don’t know”. The cashier will smile and hand us the undocumented $1,000 gift certificate, we give her the thumbs up and stroll out the front door. How about when we get pulled over for running a light and the patrol cop says, “May I see your license and registration sir?” We’ll give him the old “I don’t know”. He’ll chuckle and say “go on, you big galoot, have a good day” and we’ll speed away.

Now when we look back over the last year, we be able to sit there and laugh. “Hey, remember when we were turned down for food stamps because we weren’t poor enough?” I’ll ask my wife. She’ll put her glass of wine down as she laughs. “Yeah, the joke was on us”, she’ll say, “When they asked for our names, we just had to say 'I don’t know'. But hey, the joke was on us, right? What a bunch of practical jokers they were”. We’ll both chuckle and let bygones be bygones.

What happens if they go back to the old way? You know, the one where you actually have to prove who you are? It doesn’t matter because you guessed it, I don’t know. But for the time being I want to be gracious, so thanks, Bank of America.

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