Back to Gumperstown. The bank. “What’s my balance? I think I’m overdrawn.” Foxes to the right of him, foxes to the left of him. Goddamn branch hires tellers the way restaurants hire waitresses. Sell some tit with the sausages to stimulate appetites, better tips, return trade. But a bank?

“You’re not OD’d.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“You’re not overdrawn. This is your balance.” She passed him a slip of paper that read $126.23.

“Absolutely ridiculous, madam. I haven’t had that much in there in months. Why do I give you my money to play with?”

Lexicon. I usually rephrase as, “Why do I let you people play with my money?”

From Stephen Minkin’s excellent 1979 novel about play (“Ludics”), and Northern California in the late ‘70s, A No Doubt Mad Idea.