Fumbling and over-analysis

Until recently, nearly all my assets were held in one bank. With regular news of banks going belly up all over the place, I thought it would be prudent to open a few accounts with other banks and spread it around a little. I don't really think my bank is going to go bankrupt but life has given me some lessons in being ultra-prudent.

Today I had such an appointment. I usually have to take Beanie with me to appointments to open an account, although sometimes my in-laws jump at the chance to baby sit. But they're on holiday this week.

I thought about how awful it would be if the guy I was meeting had lost a baby, or had suffered infertility. I felt preemptively bad about it.

I arrived and he seemed a bit clueless about babies but not upset as such. During the course of the appointment, he was filling in a form and said, "Is this your first child?"

"Uh, um, yes," I said and immediately felt like I had betrayed V. and A. I normally don't answer yes to that question, but for some reason this time I thought that I didn't need to share my life history with every Tom, Dick and Harry.

But I carried on feeling bad about it.

Then at the end, when we were all done and I was just about to leave:

"So how old is he?" banker guy said.

"He's six months," I said.

"Oh like mine, he's seven months," banker guy said.

(wow, I got that wrong, that he's clueless about babies).

"Except he's my third, I've got two others, girls," he continued knowingly.

"My first died, he was older," I said. I was trying to correct my answer from earlier, as I still felt bad about it, but now I feel as though it came off like I was in some sort of competition.

"Oh, yes," banker guy carried on, not missing a beat. "My girls are six and three."

Based on past experience I think that he was not expecting me to say that my first child died, and so just ploughed on without changing tack.

Hey ho. He's probably already forgotten the whole thing.