At times like these, I wish I were a little less professional.

I've spent the past two days going from bank to bank, looking for one that would be willing to underwrite a mortgage for us.

I've been turned away by every fucking bank in town. Every. Fucking. Bank. In exactly the same way, for exactly the same reason.

Let me describe what happened in the first bank.

First National Bank. Good, big bank. It's the one my fiance and I have our accounts with--they know me there, and they know what kind of savings we'd racked up for buying a home. I figured I would be in and out, same day, no problem, and my fiance and I could spend the rest of my two week vacation house shopping.

Nope. Not by a long shot.

I got in to see the loan officer, and told her what we were looking for. I told her that my fiance had been in, and had been pretty unceremoniously turned down. She shrugged and told me with a very professional smile (perfectly empty and meaningless) that they turned down anyone whose income was that sporadic. I returned the professional smile and said that I understood that, and that we wanted to try for a mortgage in my name.

So, she pulls up the forms on her computer, and starts asking the questions I expected. You know: income, debts (I only told her about mine, not Mom's), stuff like that. Everything went as I expected, for the most part--I will admit that I wasn't expecting her to start fawning over me like she did when I mentioned what my annual income was.

And then she asked me who I worked for, and everything fell apart.

I told her that I'd been working for the agency for the past five or so years, and mentioned that I was one of their five top-paid agents. She went very stiff--stiff enough that her smile started looking like she was in absolute agony. I suppose she may have been--she was so terrified that she didn't seem like she could move for a couple of minutes. Then, with a shaking hand, she took the mouse and closed out of the program. At my raised eyebrow, she excused herself from her office.

She was gone for half an hour. When she came back, she had three security guards with her, and three cashier's checks--one with the amount from my personal checking account, one with the amount from our savings account, and one with what was in my fiance's account. Then she asked me to leave.

I didn't move. I was in more than a little shock. I asked to speak with her manager, and one of the security goons offered me a hand up. He said that the manager was actually expecting me, and that they were to escort me to his office.

The manager stood up, but didn't shake my hand or offer me a chair. He told me in a very firm voice (while refusing to look me in the eye) that he stood behind his bank's decision, and that my business wasn't welcome any longer. He said that the bank would honor any last charges through our checking accounts, but that the accounts were closed. Good day.

I will admit my smile was a bit thin and cold as I took this in. And he took a step back, away from his desk toward the windows. Then he glanced behind him, and jumped sideways--away from the windows, like I could push him out from across the room and on the other side of the desk, with security goons on either side and behind me.

Need I remind you that I am not a large woman?

I agreed that his bank would lose my business. I casually mentioned that my sister and brother-in-law, who also used this bank (and are, quite frankly, bigger and more important customers than I am), and that they'd be disappointed to hear that the bank no longer wanted my family's business. I wasn't expecting him to back down (and he didn't); I just wanted to make him squirm (and he did).

Then I endorsed the checks against the wall I was standing closest to, and handed them to the security goon on my left, telling the manager that if he didn't want my business, I'd fully release them from having to do any more business with me. Today. Because I didn't want to be carrying his checks.

Of course, he sputtered. He tried to talk me out of it. He yelled. I reached inside my jacket for a notepad to document the abuse. He cringed, whined, and took the checks himself, motioned for me to step away from the door, and ran out of the room. He came back with about a quarter million in cash, and three more guards.

They had six guards--big guys, all of them--escort a 5'2", 135 pound woman out of the bank. With a quarter mil in cash in her purse.

I'm glad I was armed.

And I did call Jenni while I was on my way home, and tell her what happened. And the bank lost another 2.5 million in business that same day.

Payback's a bitch.

In any case, I spent the rest of the day going around the big, national banks, looking for a home for our cash, and looking for a mortgage.

No dice. Not on any front.

Yesterday, I went around town again, looking into the smaller, local banks.

Again, no dice. At any of them.

I'm pretty sure that it wasn't that they just don't approve--which is why many of them won't deal with escorts at any level of the business. I got the impression at each and every one of the banks I visited that they were terrified that I'd pull out a gun and start shooting everyone without provocation.

If I was going to do that, I'd have shot the first mortgage officer when she came back in with the security goons to escort me out. But, I'm a bit more professional than that--if someone takes a contract out on her, I'll bite and scratch to get it, but without a contract, I won't do squat. It's unsanctioned murder. It's illegal. Most of all, I'm a professional, and killing her without a contract would be unprofessional. Damn it.

No, the quarter mil isn't in our apartment. So don't get any ideas.

And no, I won't take out a contract on the brainless twatcake that started the whole mess. That would also be unprofessional.

My fiance, on the other hand, is considering it for an anniversary present.

In the meantime, I need to kill something. I'm going in to look at the board this afternoon for a good, satisfying hit--and I don't care how much it pays, it just has to be satisfying. Then I'm going to go do it. Then I'll take the rest of my vacation.