One of my favourite Seinfeld episodes (if I can have just one) is Frank Costanza (played by Jerry Stiller) starts a PC Sales company out of his garage. Every time someone made a sale (not George, but that Lloyd Braun!), there was bell ringing. Things get a little out of control, and “SERENITY NOW!!!” (something I also yell a lot) was insignificant usage in that episode.
Why would I bring up such an obtuse TV reference? Maybe I had nothing better to write (did I hear a bell ringing ), or perhaps it was because I was in my local TD Canada Trust branch and saw the following sign:
“… if you like the job we did, ring our bell to show your satisfaction…”
(Or something like that). My wife dutifully rang the bell after visiting with the young teller she was at, but as I left, I rang the bell as well and pronounced loudly:
“That was for the banking machine. It did a GREAT JOB as well!”
I wish I’d yelled, SERENITY NOW! right after that. Less bell ringing needed, thank you.
If they had one at my TD branch, I’d ring the bell too. …But wouldn’t for the machine. Last month it *almost* tricked me into signing up for overdraft protection by asking the question where they usually put the “Any further transactions?” question. …And just to add further trickery, it flipped where the machine usually has the Yes/No buttons. People drunk or in a rush most certainly would’ve pressed “Yes” by reflex because they were expecting to answer “No” to a completely different question. This little bit of Loki-ism was gone by the next week. Wonder how many fish they caught in the net?
That’s hilarious!!! I bet half the staff were cursing under their breath “it’s not for the stupid machine!”
I could have shouted HOOCHIE MOMMA!!! Would that have helped ?
My “serenity now” began when I left the “dark side fee monsters” for PC Financial in 2001!
Why must our world revolve around instant fame and gratification… Hey over here, look at me… It’s one thing to complement someone on a job well done, which should be done more often, if the job is well, well done, but to ring a bell because someone did the job their paid to do? Come-on people. – Cheers.