Turns out the whole “balloon boy” thing was probably all a big hoax.

For anybody who doesn’t know, last week a Ft. Collins, Colorado family made international headlines when they claimed their 6 year old son had gone aloft in a homemade balloon.  Authorities chased the thing for near on 50 miles, traffic to and from Denver International Airport was briefly re-routed in order to stay out of the potential flight path of the balloon, and the National Guard scrambled two helicopters to assist in the rescue effort.

Of course, the thing landed gently out on the plains of eastern Colorado and… no kid.  He wasn’t inside.  Authorities initially thought the worst, that he had fallen out during the flight.  A few hours later, the kid turned up at his home (which the police had searched twice already) safe and sound!  He claimed to have been hiding in the attic the whole time.

At first, everyone was relieved, of course.  But then the inevitable question was asked–if the kid was never in the balloon to begin with, why did his family think he was?  Turns out, they were all standing around watching when the thing “inadvertently” took off–there’s even this video of the takeoff, which to my eye clearly shows the kid in question walking away before the thing flies off without him in it.  Then his dad gets all ripshit about something (was the wife supposed to keep a hold of the tether?  I guess…) and kicks randomly at stuff.

Well, now we know (the alleged) whole sordid truth.  Turns out the whole thing was staged because… the couple thought it would get them a reality TV show?  Wow, really?  I guess you have to be completely insane to make that connection–pretend to send our son up in a helium balloon, incite massive media frenzy, get TV show!  Sure, it makes sense!

All I know is, this story needs to go away now.  Ok, yeah, it’s not every day a kid goes up in a homemade helium balloon.  But, now that we know he didn’t, actually, and that his family are a bunch of oddball weirdos looking for attention, I think the best thing to do is to start ignoring the shit out of them.

I don’t know when customer service died, but it’s surely as dead as, well, Ted Kennedy.  Did you know he died?  I saw something about it on the ‘tubes the other day, I think.

Anyway, check this out.  Dude just wants to cash a check, right?  No big deal, he goes to his wife’s bank.  They’ll surely cash it for him.  Thing is, they want proof of identity.  Well, he has that–two forms of ID, even.  That’s not quite enough, though.  They want a thumbprint.

A thumbprint!  To cash a goddamn check!  At this point, I’d probably walk out.  I’m no privacy nut, but I can’t think of any legitimate reason for a bank to have my thumbprint on file just because I want to cash a damn check.  This man, however, apparently needs the money, so he presses the issue.  Thing is, he doesn’t have any thumbs.  No arms either.

A reasonable person would think his two forms of ID would be enough.  His wife has an account with this bank, and apparently he’s cashing a check from her, that is drawn on her funds held at this bank.  In a reasonable world, where customer service was still something people, you know, took seriously, the teller would have said “Oh, I see you have NO ARMS.  I guess you can’t give me a thumbprint then.  It’s ok, these two forms of ID are enough” and cashed his check.

But that’s not how shit works anymore.  Today, if anything happens that’s outside the norm, the whole system breaks down.  People who are supposed to be helping customers can’t deal with things that are slightly different than what they’re expecting.  If rules and procedures aren’t followed, brains explode!

The worst part here is that the teller apparently called the bank manager over.  Ok, maybe the teller is  not empowered to break these ridiculously arbitrary and invasive rules about requiring thumbprints.  But the damn manager?  He told the dude to come back later with his wife, or open an account with them himself!

WTF?  No, asshole.  The proper response was “Oh, I’m sorry sir, certainly we’ll cash that check for you.”  But no, slavish devotion to ridiculous and arbitrary rules is much better than SERVING YOUR CUSTOMERS.

Seriously, when did it become acceptable to just turn people away rather than go out of your way to help them?  Shouldn’t businesses be trying to keep their customers happy?  It’s not like this guy walked in and demanded a million dollar loan with no collateral.  He just wanted to cash a damn check!