The Swiss Success!

My dears!

As some of you might know, the reason why I am married to Gunther is that he saved me when the Colombian Maffia killed (I think) my ex-boyfriend (who was my current boyfriend at the time) and they were heading for me, too, but Gunther helped me escape with a suitcase containing between 1 and 3 million dollars I accidentally grabbed. (I had no time to count. Took me long enough to find it.) He then asked for my hand. It was very awkward to say “no” to someone who has just saved your life, can easily overpower you and take away the suitcase, and also is actually already holding your other hand. We stopped for a quick wedding before panically I found the first Swiss bank I saw in the Switzerland and ran inside, throwing the suitcase at a suited man called Wiederschnitze, who looked like he was going to call the police for being thrown a suitcase at, until he opened it, and then he was quite happy to receive us.

If you follow me on Facebook, which you should, you know some bits of the story. Our (sigh – Gunther still shows no sign of beer and Prongles poisoning) income is the “interest” which I assumed for a while was the level of how interesting the bank is finding me in comparison with other clients and their accounts. This concerned me when the interest suddenly lowered. And remained lowered. Thus, I decided to call Herr Wiederschnitze and talk to him. And found myself out in a situation I am sure you know from experience.

The dreaded menu.

“Press 0 to speak Switzerlandish. Press 1 to speak Azerbaijanish. Press 2 to…” it continued, all of it in English, by the way, until it got to 383, which was English. (I may be getting the numbers wrong, but not by much.) I then had to spell my name, “press 21 for Q, press 22 for R, press…” confirming each letter with the hash (not of the illegal variety! “#”) key, my account number, my secret question which I can’t reveal due to knowing how secrets work to which the answer I have unfortunately chosen was “Haggis MacBrawn’s Highlander Saga” which took a lot of pressing numbers and hashes. And then I got disconnected.

I tried again a few days later and got to the bit where I had to spell “Wiederschnitze” and I was asked whether it is Herr or Frau that I wish to speak for. It was obviously Herr, unless they were either in drag or in the process of gender affirmation, which I wouldn’t know because you don’t ask Swiss bankers this sort of question. It then asked me to give the initial. (Spoiler: I will soon find that there are in fact multiple Wiederschnitzes in the bank.) I chose “L” (which I knew because it appears on the Statements I receive via secret Royal Mail every year, where they say that due to my secrecy they can’t tell me how much money I have) and the menu told me there was no such person.

I decided to try in case there has been the drag and/or gender affirmation, and got to the bit (I drank four espressos, starting on Saturday night, determined to get through) where I said Frau, then L, and then the menu told me that due to it being Sunday afternoon, the bank is closed, and to try again during the opening hours. I simply couldn’t do this to myself, which I am sure you all relate to, especially if you tried to switch your Internet provider in the UK. Therefore, I have made a desperate move. I cashed my savings and bought a two-way ticket to Switzerland.

Little did I know how many Swiss banks there were in the Switzerland. The whole country consists of Swiss cheese, Swiss mountains, people who ski down Swiss mountains, and banks. Oh, and hotels and grocery stores and restaurants. I initially thought of eating in a restaurant until I found out how much a glass of tap water cost. I settled on bread which must have been made of gold by the winner of The Great British Bake-Off. There was a drinking fountain, although it was so large it might have been an actual fountain, but I was desperate, except the fountain was not working due to cold weather. When I was filled to the brim with the dry bread, I entered the shabbiest-looking hotel, and tried to walk into the ladies’ powder room in a confident way. I was stopped, of course, and asked what I was doing. I tried to say “going to the ladies’ powder room” but due to my mouth being full of bread I said something not really like that, and was sent to the Portiéré who told me the only room available was the Suité, and when I saw the price for the Suité, I swallowed so hard the bread finally went down. I then half-pretended – the other half was quite real – to faint, and asked for a glass of water, making a facial expression explaining that otherwise I will sue them for every billion they have.

Then I found out that sleeping on a park bench in the Switzerland is 1) very uncomfortable, 2) very cold, and 3) illegal. The policemen weren’t handsome – Swiss men unfortunately either don’t spend their fortune on plastic surgery or, worse, they do – but took me to the prison cell and allowed me to stay the night. I even got breakfast and coffee out of it! The next time you go to the Switzerland, remember to get arrested, and you’ll save lots and lots of Swiss euros. Anyway, now that I was somewhat refreshed, in positive spirits I headed to the bank.

(There is a plot twist coming.)

As I soon found out, there were multiple Wiederschnitzes. “Ouroboros Wiederschnitze and Sons,” the sign said, and under it was glued with chewing gum a post-it saying “and daughter Louisa (aged 7).” That’s right. L. stood for Louisa, aged 7, who has apparently been tasked with my account at some point. (I did not keep all the Statements, shredding them due to my living in fear of the Colombian Maffia and/or the non-Swiss police, and even if I did keep them, I wouldn’t bring them all with me.) I bursted in and demanded to speak with Frau Louisa. “Do you know who I am?” I said when the receptionist told me that I can leave a note and the secretary of the assistant of the flunky of Frau Louisa will call me within 28 working days. The receptionist didn’t. I almost said “a renowned future award-winning Author Karen McCompostine” but instead I told him my actual name (it’s hard to remember sometimes when you live in cognito, but are in fact famous in many circles) and the secret Der Password, which is not the same as the answer to my secret question, and then he suddenly knew who I was.

Louisa was dressed in a very small pink business suit and kept chewing gum. Apparently, her father Ouroboros wanted her to learn the business as quickly as possible, due to her brother German-name-I-forgot “eww, boys are gross” being gross, so he tasked her with the less important clients. Louisa, I am sure, was trying to intimidate me, and I must admit that after a night in prison cell so that I could get a glass of tap water it almost worked. She then told me she was “playing with the numbers” and making sure everything added up, and when at school she got to substracting, she was making sure everything substracted down. Therefore, Louisa informed me with the aura of a Goddess who makes chewing gum balloons pop, my account has substracted, but if I wished to sue the bank, I was free to do so.

(She winked at “free.”)

I, however, am an expert on children, despite not having any, since I have been a child many years ago, and I have been raised by nuns. Quickly, I ran through the dark corners of my memory, trying to figure which nun voice would work best, and had an epiphany. They all wanted to be called Sisters, but the important one was the Mother. “Child,” I said, “if you don’t behave, I will tell your mother.”

You wouldn’t believe how quickly Louisa remembered adding. I told her that my suitcase contained between 1 and 3 million dollars, which she easily added to 4 million as adding works, but I reminded her that the number between 1 and 3 is 13. She either fell for it, or didn’t care due to having substracted much more, or her mother is even worse than Sister Bernadette, and this is how my account very quickly added itself to 13 million PLUS 4, as a lesson in adding. Satisfied, I left the bank and here comes the plot twist! A threatened seven-year-old who chews gum while substracting is not to be trusted. I ran to the bank next door, where I have earlier ascertained you could call and speak to the actual person (I checked on the flash in case they were lying) and immediately transferred every single Swiss euro cent to this new bank. You wouldn’t believe how helpful and polite bankers become when you are an owner of 13+4 million Swiss euros. (Which seems to be even more than 17 million dollars. Even Swiss euros are expensive.) I then invested half of it into technology companies called bit coins where every bit counts as a coin, as the banker explained, and transferred half of the other half to a secret account which I have set up in a different Swiss bank (yes, I have skipped a few steps during my earlier explanation) where I invested half in toilet paper producing companies, in case there is another pandemic, and kept the half of the other half of the other half on a normal account.

I just realised that I forgot to ask how much interest I was going to attract at those banks, but one thing you can be sure of is that if they don’t find my millions to be of enough interest, I now know how to make transfers from one Swiss bank to another, and have I mentioned you can’t take a step not to trip over a Swiss bank when you are in the Switzerland?

I flew back on the expensive class on the airplane. They didn’t want to switch me from “cargo” because that was the original ticket, but you wouldn’t believe how materialistic people are. Ten thousand here, ten thousand there, and now I know what a private jet looks like from the outside and from the inside.

And the water and dinner were FREE, so I saved money!

None of this can get to Gunther, obviously, because as he reminded me a while ago we do not have a pre-nup, which means that in case of a divorce he gets half of my 13+4 millions. I have to call the UK bank in which my interest arrives to my account to split it into the regular interest number and send the rest of the interest to my new secret account.

I hope they don’t have a menu…

Lots of love and millions,

Karen xoxo

PS. I don’t know why the “caption” for the photo doesn’t show up, but doesn’t my private jet dinner (with Swiss cheese) look gorgeous? Photo taken by my new best friend (during my private jet flights from the Switzerland) Jeffrey W.