The Drive-Through Teller and the Tractor
I pull my tractor up to a drive-through bank window in Hico, and the little pneumatic tube is not ready for what I send it.
There is a bank in Hico with a drive-through lane, and for years I had wanted to use it on the tractor. It was not that I needed the money. It was that the lane looked just wide enough, and a man has to have a few goals.
One Friday, I had a deposit to make and a feed delivery to meet, so I figured I would combine the trips. I eased my old green tractor, which is a different machine than I let on to the teller, into the lane behind a minivan. The minivan driver looked in her mirror, looked again, and then very politely let her kids wave at me. I waved back. A tractor in a drive-through can make friends.
When I reached the window, the teller slid the tube out on the end of its little arm. The trouble was the tractor sits a good five feet higher than a car. I stood up on the seat, which was a little wobbly, and stretched, and the tube came to rest perfectly in front of my hat brim. I dropped the deposit slip in, and the tube whooshed away into the wall with a satisfying sound.
Then it came back. Inside was a lollipop, a receipt, and a note that said, 'Thank you for choosing the tractor lane.' I had not known there was a tractor lane. It turned out the teller had been waiting twelve years for someone to use it and had written the note in advance, just in case. That is the kind of patience you hope for in a banker.
I drove out at four miles an hour, which was the fastest the lane allowed, and the minivan followed me all the way to the corner. I still do my deposits that way once a year. If you want to know which tractor suits a small place like mine, the folks at farm.FM have swapped enough stories on the subject to fill a barn.
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