A man and a woman...

A man and a woman are standing in a bank.

The bank functions through complex, ridiculous rituals borne out of unabashed self-importance on the fertile soil of a tolerant and happy-go-lucky population.

They use, for no comprehensible reason, a double door with a semaphore as if it were a submarine or an outer space facility and you absolutely must make sure the outer door's locked before the inner door may open. Under the stiff air conditioning there's chairs, and the rent-a-cop that'd be happy to read his fishwrap anywhere else insistently directs people to sit down, in sorted order of arrival. Then, whenever a cashier frees up, the person seated on the leftmost chair on the first line goes up to the window, whereas everyone else stands and moves one chair up closer to banking paradise. The whole charade closely approximates a herd of strange aquatic birds, sitting and standing up and then sitting and then standing up again.

Most of the patrons seem genuinely happy to reseat themselves at intervals. The man and the woman are standing in front of two respectfully empty seats, and on occasion take a step in the general direction of increasing chair glory thus keeping up with the human wave.

Off to a side there's a table, painted in various harsh colors, with four dismatchingⁱ chairs. On one of the chairs a child is mostly perched, and he's playing with something on the table that doesn't look like much.

M : That kiddy table doesn't look like much.
W : Yeah, there should be some garbage trucks. And helicopters.

M : Telicopters. You know, helicopters with TV inside.
W : Oh, yeah. And play dough.

M : Plato ?
W : Play dough.

M : Not sure that's such a good idea. It'd end up everywhere.
W : Yes it would. For that matter so would the helicopters. I mean telicopters.

M : Hm.
W : Maybe they should make like a bubble. Put your kid in there.

M : Or I guess a pit. You know, sunken in the floor. Make it deep enough they're not going anywhere.
W : How do you get your kid back out ?

M : They put one of those cranes on the side, like they have at fairs. Put a quarter in, fish out your kid.
W : You know, those are really hard.

M : I know!
W : You'll have a lot of left over kids at the end of the day.

M : I guess you could open up a restaurant on the side.

You know ?

1. Dismatching is what happens when dichromats read a book on "modern" art and start producing ordures in their fashion. You know, for kids. [↩]