I have this strange debacle facing me that every time I hit the print button on my computer I’m going un-green.

I learned my lesson didn’t I? God may have yanked on my ear lobe and yet based on my printing paper spend, I’m not sure I learned the lesson.

I borrowed  money from my brother years ago, back when 3 houses just wasn’t quite enough. I’m making payments on the loan and stroll into Wells Fargo to deposit my satchel of coins for my dear brother who loves me so much he trusted me to pay him back.

Here’s the next few critical steps of this incident that happened a month ago, yet I really believe it was that one life changing experience that tips you into awareness and breaks the habit of printing endlessly, which I do. I love to touch what I’m reading.

I get an email from my brother and in it he says, “Hey bro, dump the money in XXX-YYY-ZZZ account. Call me when you have it done.” I print the email that has one typed line of text and off to the bank I go.

Now, my usual busy self must have had a ton on my mind as I usually do when I’m running errands. I jump out of my truck, dash into the bank, piece of paper folded in half, in hand with my brothers account number on it.

Oh Lord, my mind must have been somewhere else, as I approached the teller my mind was definitely visiting Oz and I was the wizard. Why you say? I was kind of in a rush and dashed to the first teller I could see available. She was nice too, she waved me in as if she was excited to see me. I smiled real big and handed her the paper, folded in half and thought my deposit experience with a lovely teller at Wells Fargo was well on it’s way to a delightful close.

I looked down going about my A.D.D. business, thinking of the millions of things I had to do that day and heard a big gasp a few feet in front of me. Could that be the teller gasping?

I look up she’s holding the paper up at eye level, squinting to see what my brother wrote to me. She looks at me and with her eyebrows up, says, “Are you robbing me?”

Oh NO!! I shared, “no I’m not robbing you!” as her hand moved under the counter to sound the silent alarms. All the other tellers snapped their heads when they heard me say “No, I’m not robbing you!

I noticed her hand moving under the counter and I requested in a quiet whimper, “please don’t hit the button.” She was cool. Her hand came out from under the counter and grinned at me and we both started laughing hysterically.

What’s ironic is, I was in that bank one year ago right in the middle of a major bank heist. Three masked gunmen ordered everyone down and repeated every 10 seconds, “Shut the BLEEP Up”. I was thinking as I was on the floor near the door, “Oh how sweet of them to pistol whip those fragile women behind the counter”. Truly I wanted to stand up, pistol whip them myself then whisper in their ear, “Hey, why don’t you burn in hell, and we’ll call it even.” Of course I would probably only say that if the cops had gotten their 30 seconds sooner. The bad guys bolted out the door with bags of cash and got away.

This was like right out of a movie scene. The police thought they were in the bank for a couple minutes and didn’t know they had escaped. They continued yelling from the parking lot to “Come out.” Finally, one of the employees stepped out and said “They’re gone!”

So, moral of this story is that I’m ready to print less and feel much more green deep in my heart and see more black in my financial ledger. Also, pick a bank where you see those big see-thru  security dividers that reduce these more common robberies when you bank.