Things You Should Already Know By Now: Opening a Checking Account

When you get to the bank, notice all the desks scattered about the office. You may remember them from when you accompanied your mother when she went to cash her paychecks and made the whole thing a baffling ordeal for her to the point where she got fed up and slapped the shit out of you right there in line for the teller. Yeah, those ones. Walk up to a desk and ask to open a checking account. Make sure someone is sitting at the desk or it will look odd to everyone else in the bank and they'll think you're weird and won't give you an account. It's a common rookie mistake and happens more often than you think.

Hand your drivers license to the bank person and tell them your name. Make sure the name you say matches the one on the license. They will ask you for your social security card. Chances are you don't have a social security card because you lost it or traded it for a rare Magic: The Gathering battle monster card set or whatever the hell they call that nonsense. Check out www.ssa.gov for instructions on how to get one. After waiting the necessary 3-4 months for your card to be mailed, stolen by a meth addict rifling through the mail, and then remailed, come back here.

A hot piece of ass teaches some idiot how to write a check or whatever's going on in this stock photo picture. Does she come with the checkbook? GODDAMN, son.Go back to the bank and follow the steps again from before you left off. The bank person will tell you that they need a minimum of $20 to open a checking account for you. Chances are you don't have $20. Check out Lowtax's guide to Job Success for help making the money you've always dreamed of. I seriously thought you just opened the account and put the money in later. Jesus Christ this is hard.

Once you've got the minimum initial deposit necessary to open this godforsaken account go back to the bank. By now they know you by name as that asshole who keeps trying to open an account and they'll wonder how you'll screw up today. The ball's in your court this time though, because you've got a social security card, twenty dollars, and the ambition to be the first in your family to open a bank account. They can't deny you an account because that's the law, and the law is money in the bank for you my friend.

Your cocky stride says only one thing, that you're in it to win it, a checking account that is! Open that bitch up for all she's worth. Shove your $20 in there with gusto. No more trips to the check cashing place on Fridays for you!

I'd recommend opening a savings account as well but you're probably the kind of guy who thinks, "Why should that $20 be sitting in the bank doing nothing when it could be on my wall in the form of a Haruhi wallscroll?!" For now your checking account is basically just a temporary holding pen for your Gamestop paycheck until you realize that anime doesn't grow on trees.

Next week on Things You Should Already Know By Now I'll show you how to use your newly acquired bank card to purchase a pair of shoes and successfully get them on your feet with as little bloodshed as possible. For now this is Acetone saying goon night, Internet.

– Hassan "Acetone" Mikal