predatory lending.

A couple of weeks ago, Josh and I were hanging out at his bandmate's house. They were talking about opening a checking account for the band. All they needed to get that going was Josh's signature on the contract. However, he refused to sign. He had read the thing, and found a part about automatic overdraft protection. What happened was that when you tried to debit more from your account then you had, then the bank seemlessly provided those funds and put the debt on a credit line. There was no charge for this service.

Josh said no, no, no, this was a bad idea. He did not want to be going into debt without even knowing it. Do not spend money that you don't have.

The other guys said it was no big deal, they would never even use it. And if they did, it was just an emergency situation. This second argument seemed to directly contradict the first argument, but whatever. Generally, they thought he was getting all upset over nothing.

Finally, the guitarist gave in and said FINE, you handle it. So Josh put on a nice shirt and went down to the bank to talk to an account manager about the fine print. He explained that they would like to open an account here, but that they were not willing to agree to this one clause.

"Oh, we don't even use that contract anymore," the bank lady told him. "We actually took that particular clause out, because our lawyers said it was predatory lending." She gave him the new contract, which he read over and happily signed.

I have no idea how Josh broke this news to the other guys, but I know that I myself would have barely able to contain my glee.