Curiouser and Curiouser

It was a Tuesday morning quite like any other.

When her alarm blared at 7:00am, Marie had grabbed at her phone, jabbed at the snooze button and promptly rolled over and gone back to sleep. Half an hour later saw her blearily moving around the kitchen fixing herself a cup of tea and a brownie for breakfast because well, it was a Tuesday and she wasn’t late (yet) and why the hell not.

It was approximately five minutes after she had settled on her couch with said cup of tea and brownie that her Tuesday became markedly different to any other Tuesday in her life thus far.

After the obligatory scroll through her emails (We miss you, here’s 10% off!) , Facebook (Wish Alice Happy Birthday) and Instagram (Top 5 dreamiest new cafes for Sunday brunch), Marie clicked on the application for her bank. This was a recent addition to her morning routine, a rather inane yet symbolic gesture to signify her taking her finances a bit more seriously, like any self-respecting, independent young woman would.

So it was a Shock (capitalisation necessary) when Marie, precariously balancing a corner of her crumbling brownie in her mouth, glanced at her bank balance. The balance which was approximately $20,000 more than what it had been 24 hours earlier.

The brownie fell straight out of her mouth.

Marie quickly tossed her phone down as if it had scalded her. Brushing crumbs from her lips, she stared at the offending device before tentatively reaching out and flipping it over.

The numbers stared back at her. Obnoxiously (in Marie’s opinion).

Marie peered at the numbers through narrowed eyes as if squinting would somehow frighten the rogue comma that had appeared overnight, taunting her with its mere presence. Of course, the comma did no such thing, but remained placidly sitting between the jumble of numbers that now constituted her bank balance.

This was fine.

Everything was just fine.

This was probably a technical glitch Marie thought as she rather calmly in her opinion (if her phone screen could talk, it would beg to differ), tapped and swiped at the screen, signing out and closing down all the applications on her phone. It was gently placed on the couch next her, and then she took three deep breaths.

One. Two. Three.

Picking up her phone again, she furiously jabbed at the screen, logging back into her banking app. And there it was, $20,000 calmly sitting in her account, unaware of the chaos it had caused this Tuesday morning (though admittedly, the chaos at this stage was confined to Marie, her abused phone, and the neglected brownie on her coffee table).

Well.

Felling irrationally betrayed by the small chunk of metal and glass, Marie grabbed her laptop to log into her bank account yet again. Obviously something was wrong with her phone.

Yet there it was again, an extra $20,000. Marie heatedly clicked through her statement and opened up the details of the transaction. Nothing. Not a clue as to where or why or who had deposited this money into her account.

Letting out a huff, her eyes glanced around the room, as if her lampshade would spring to life and offer some worldly advice. She paused as her eyes fell on the struggling fern on her bookshelf before swinging to the brownie sitting innocently in front of her.

A cautious hand snuck out, lifting the plate to her nose and sniffing suspiciously. The scent of chocolate overwhelmed her…and that was all. Marie rolled her eyes– there was no way sweet old Catherine would have put anything in these brownies. If she had, the whole office would have been buzzing yesterday. No, there was definitely a logical explanation for the situation, not some fever dream brought on by baked goods infused with hallucinogenic greenery.

Marie pinched herself for good measure.

Definitely not a dream.

Encouraged by this measure of reality, she sat up and called the helpline for her bank – an obvious solution now that she thought about – the shock of the situation had, understandably, thrown her off kilter.

Anyone who has every had the misfortune to ring a helpline knows that there’s no task so efficient at plunging one into the depths of despair. This is precisely where Marie found herself after spending 15 minutes explaining to three different operators the predicament she had found herself in – yes it was an extra $20,000 dollars, no she hadn’t misread the screen, yes she was sure it was her account, no she had no clue why the money had suddenly appeared in her account and yes it possibly could have been a mistake but wasn’t it the bank’s job to tell her that?

Marie paced her living room as she spoke to a fourth bank employee (Lewis), who seemed even more alarmingly unperturbed than the previous three by the mysterious deposit into her account.

“What if it’s drug money? I don’t want to be accidently part of a money laundering scheme and have my head chopped of by the mafia,” Marie laughed nonchalantly into the phone.

At least, Marie thought it was nonchalant. If the cat (Charles) sitting on the balcony opposite her apartment could speak, he would have dutifully informed us that Marie was bordering on hysterical by this point.

“We can’t see any issues with the transaction, by all accounts, pun not intended, the money is yours,” Lewis informed her.

Marie thought this unacceptable, which was exactly what she told Lewis. Lewis wondered how unethical it would be to tell Marie to transfer the $20,000 straight to his account.

Unfortunately (for both Marie and Lewis) they had now reached an impasse at which point Lewis re-iterated that as there seemed to be no fraudulent or criminal activity, there wasn’t anything more he, or the bank, could do for Marie (in the case of the mysterious money in her account, but was she able to answer the 1 minute survey at the end of this call for future training purposes?).

Marie hung up immediately.

Then promptly called the police.

Who just as promptly told her that as it didn’t appear a crime had been committed, and the bank said the money was her, then there wasn’t anything they could do and perhaps in the future she could consider not wasting police resources with ridiculous matters such as this for goodness sake!

It was at this point that Marie, who had never been associated with any sort of irresponsible behaviour in her life (except for accidently putting foil in a microwave but she had quickly rectified that), had to sit down. (Marie’s downstairs neighbour Diana clasped her hands in thanks that the hysterical stomping from above – entirely unnecessary at the time of the morning, on a Tuesday no less – had finally ceased.

Marie’s philosophy in life was everything – good, bad, impossible and illogical – could be made better with a nice cup of tea. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she marched (as much as one can march on shaky legs) to the bathroom. Splashing her face with cool water, Marie peered at her reflection in the mirror.

The situation was utter nonsense.

However, as she doctored her second cup of tea and pondered at the seemingly impossible circumstances of this Tuesday, Marie came to the conclusion that perhaps impossible things were not so impossible (and before breakfast no-less). Therefore, if this ($20,000 richer than yesterday), was to be her new reality then there was really only one thing to do…

Marie placed her tea cup back on the coffee table and quickly tapped out a message to her boss, “Sorry Regina, won’t be in today”.

Reclining comfortably into the cushions, she grabbed the small black notebook on the coffee table which currently housed her weekly ‘to-do’ lists. Flipping to a new page, Marie started a new list...