In the Space of an Hour...

...I had my bank card destroyed, found out the magic stamp was worth very little (right now), paid a summons... on and on.

I was sitting here, happily posting a comment on Ted the Third's blog post about quotes from the Sunday Seven meme, when I received an e-mail from my bank. It showed a $15.00 charge from cars.com. What the f--? So I called my bank and told them that is not my charge. The woman there said they would put through paperwork regarding this. She also recommended I contact cars.com and ask them about it.

After perusing the Web site and not finding a phone number, I Googled them - "cars.com phone number" - and it came right up. I was transferred to three different people before I got the right person/department. By then I was just a little peeved. But Jared was very helpful and told me that yes, they caught the transaction as fraudulent. Really...? Yes, it turns out they have software that compares the transaction to past fraudulent ones as well as gauging the cost of the vehicle posted in the advert (it costs $15.00 to post a car-selling advert). So it never made it online. I thought to ask if the 3-digit extra code (on the back of credit and bank cards) was needed to allow the transaction to go through. He confirmed that it did. Well. That is the end of that card.

So I called my bank back, cancelled the card and the PIN number, and will have to wait for the new card to come in... and reset up several things... e-bay, EZ Pass, Amazon, the list goes on. And from now on the card doesn't leave my bloody hand! When I get fuel, I'll use my credit card instead of my bank card.

All this after I just expunged all my bad debt and started living like a decent person. I also changed my credit card maximum from $5,000 to $500. Laugh all you want but if I have the money, I will spend it. When I called Luis on the hells of losing my bank card, he managed to get in a cheap shot: "This is why I didn't think lowering it to $500 limit was a bad idea." Oh, shut up! You have at least one bank account with $100,000 in it! What can you possibly understand of the person who derives at least some of his/her identity in shopping!

I have acquiesced to his idea of getting a second credit card. It will have to fit certain specific criteria: 1. they are willing to take me (it's all moot if they don't), 2. the card has no more than $500 on it and 3. there is a distinct advantage. For example my one and only card is an Amazon card. It's really one of the many credit card banks out there, but on it reads "Amazon". I get Amazon points toward Amazon purchases, so it is worth it to me to keep it. So the next card maybe should be from e-bay, ha ha.

NOTE: To people who do this, you are slime under my feet. Crawl back under whatever rock you crawled out of and stay there. Get a job. Go forth and be a better sli-- human being. Or come to my face and tell me you stole my bank card number so that I can slap yours.

Is it too harsh to bring back hangings?

Then I called the State of New Jersey Garden State Parkway people who work with EZ Pass but clearly don't actually call them. In early April, unbeknownst to me, Luis went flying through an EZ Pass toll but my account was low - way too low - thanks to the last time I lost my bank card (which is usually what happens, but this time I had my card right in front of me) - and there was a $1.00 toll plus a $25.00 administrative fee (yes, it's a racket). I paid up the account directly through EZ Pass in April. But a week ago this final notice came in... sigh. It took ten minutes to get a human on the phone to explain the situation and that was an end to it. Thank you, Carmen.

As I was hanging up from that, I received a call from a jewelers in Parsippany. I tried to call last night when I found that 1863 "black jack" stamp, but they'd closed. I spoke briefly to the owner and he said that the market on stamps right now is really, really low, but to hold on to it. Okay. I wasn't really expecting to find sudden wealth with an unstamped but used 1863 Andrew Jackson 2¢ stamp, but it was fun to wonder. I think I'd rather keep it anyway. Granted, for the right price, I would sell it - if it was a 4-figure windfall, yes, why not? But for just a couple of hundred, I'd rather have the history in my hot little hands.

Still, for just that moment...

Then I opened up my Aetna card to see what it looked like. It has the wrong date on it (unsurprising) and one odd code that changed but I'd known since May that the plan was not changing at all and so I was just curious what that code pertained to. I had a nice little chat with my successor - she's really so very pleasant - and things at the Big BGC are going well and she's working much more normal hours now. I was very relieved to hear it -the timing when she started was just a little mean to her. Starting in mid-March is almost cruel - thrown into the hiring insanity, the payroll jumping up in leaps and bounds - the spring is really hard. But she's got the hang of it now. Still, it takes one full year to really grasp all the intricacies of the job.

And no moves or anything from the enemy, either. I really believe the evil and heinous U-word won't try it at this point but one never knows, does one?

I'm a nervous Nelly when it comes to my coverage. I don't have to go to the doctor as much but my pharmacy casts are the real driving force. In May I went through three weeks of sheer screaming hell between a SNAFU with my actual benefits status and when Aetna figured it all out. For three weeks I was a 90-year-old nearly-bedridden woman - without one key drug, there is no getting up, no getting out, barely can walk. No messing with my benefits and meds, please. And a lot of this was Aetna. The other side had dotted the "i"s and crossed the "t"s just as they should.

I ate lunch too, although I don't think I have tasted it. I was supposed to sit down and eat at noon, then go to the Shoprite and get a few things... but that one lousy e-mail rolled in and now it is 1458... and I haven't gone anywhere! Sheesh.

I feel like I worked all day in that one hour!