I'm Contemplating a Little Violence...

Today actually didn’t start out bad. It’s only gotten bad the longer it’s gone on. (Mental note...check into feasibility of ten hour days, in lieu of the standard twenty four hour variety.) I know most of you are entirely too intimately familiar with the phenomenon of a day turning bad on you. Somehow, even knowing that it's far too common doesn’t make it suck less.

Work hasn’t been bad, and some wedding stuff I’m working on is coming together. But our upstairs neighbor has sublet their space to the Russian Olympic hurdle-jumping squad. For hours, they’ve been practicing right above my head. One by one, I can hear them running, running, running, running, and then JUMP! A few seconds for the next person to get in position, and then run, run, run, run, JUMP!

I’ve had paint chips (and unidentifiable detritus that I don’t even want to investigate) falling on my desk (likely in my hair) all day. Not to mention having to listen to the thundering herd nonstop for hours. Which is not nearly the fun you'd think it is.

Add on to that, that I’m looking for a tax refund and got online to check my bank balance. I realize that sounds like a good thing. (Normally, it is.)

I hit a snag when I couldn’t log in to get my banking information. I’d been on yesterday with no problem. Today, I got an error message that gave me an “800” number to call. When I called, I was told that the card was frozen and I was referred to the bank’s Fraud Department.

Part of me was thinking that there had been a charge that they didn’t recognize, I’d verify it, they’d unfreeze the card and I’d go on with my life. Uh, uh. It’s not gonna be like that. Someone has gotten my pin number and my card number. In Mexico. And they’re living it up on the paltry dregs of my checking account. (Which can’t be much living, I’ll tell you.)

Luckily, my bank’s fraud division got right on it. (Though it makes you wonder how they can “know” that kind of stuff.) Likely, the fact that I picked up a prescription and filled my car up last night in River City, and then started charging stuff like crazy in Mexico this morning was a tip. They’d have to be watching pretty closely to have caught it that quickly though.

In any event, I’ve got a few hundred dollars less to work with for the next couple weeks. (Which, given my finances is gonna hurt.) Not cool. Once they have determined it was fraud, the bank will put it back in. In the meantime, I’ve got checks out that haven’t cleared yet, and [Kid 3] has therapy tonight...with a copay of $50. More fun on the horizon, guys and gals!

So, I’m leaving work early today to get a new (temporary) debit card and check with my bank to make sure the checks I’ve written will clear. It's gonna be a crappy couple of weeks. (I guess I should be grateful this happened BEFORE the tax refund hit, though. Honestly, I am.)

The calendar says “Tuesday”, but today’s got all the earmarkings of a "Monday".