The Stimulus check for my wife and me arrived [View all]

[MineralMan]

on Monday about 1 PM. I filled out a deposit slip and headed for the bank right after the mail came.

I have never seen the drive-through banking lanes so full. There were at least 24 cars lined up to access the services. I considered waiting until the next day, but stayed in the line. The large branch bank office near me has 8 drive-through lanes, plus two ATM drive-through lanes. There was a line backed up at all of them.

As I waited, I wondered if everyone in the line had just gotten their stimulus check. That could be, I thought, but it was also the first Monday of the month, so there might well have been paychecks and other checks people were depositing.

After about half an hour, it was my turn. I put my check and deposit slip in the canister and sent it up through the tube to the teller. While I waited, I used some Purell on my hands, since who knows who handled it before.

The cheerful, chirpy teller came on the screen after a minute and said, "There sure have been a lot of those checks coming in today." So, my question was answered without asking. Apparently a bunch of them arrived in people's mailboxes on May 4. I pulled ahead to let the next person in line drive up, and then sanitized my hands again before driving off.

As an aside, though, I'm still wondering why people just sit there in their cars after their transaction is complete, slowly putting paperwork back in their wallets or purses, and doing whatever else it is that they do before driving away. What an inefficient process! All a person would have to do would be to drive forward about 20 feet and then do their rearranging before driving off. That would let the next person drive up to the drive-through terminal. That's a pet peeve of mine.