Stressful Experience

So Friday I had quite the experience, when all I wanted to do was to get some gas for the car! After meeting Tim for his dinner break yesterday, I headed over to the gas station, since I was almost on empty. When I swiped my credit card, it said transaction canceled. So I tried it again….and again....and again. Finally, I decided to go to another pump. Same thing!!! It kept telling me to see sales associate, which I was not about to do since I had a screaming baby in the car (Hungry+teething+overtired=screaming baby). I’m getting a little frustrated that I can’t get it to work and I have this screaming baby in the car, so I go to the next gas station. After trying my credit card twice and having the same thing happen, I decided to run inside the store. I guess another customer thought I looked pretty frazzled because he let me go in front of him. But the card still wouldn’t work. At this point I have no idea what to do. Micah is still screaming. I don’t have any other credit card with me, no debit card, the bank is closed and I don’t have the ATM card or pin number anyways, no cash and Tim is back to the phones at work! So now what? I started driving, still not knowing what to do. I called the credit card company and pulled over into a parking lot. I tried to hear the lady on the other end, because, yes, Micah is still crying! I quickly climb into the back seat to offer him my finger, which thankfully calms him down. Now the lady is asking for the password for our credit card account!!! Password?!! I have NO clue! She gave me the hint…I still had no idea! I’m wracking my brain, explaining to the lady that I don’t know his password and never even thought to ask for it (Tim opened the account before we were even married, and I just joined on after marriage). They transferred me to the fraud department, where I talked to a very nice lady! I explained to her that I was just trying to get gas in my car so I could get home, I have no money on me, my husband is at work, and I can’t call him because he’s on the phones calling other people, I’ve got a crying baby who needs to get home, and I don’t know Tim’s password! I think I was so frazzled and frustrated by this point that she felt sorry for me! (This is about 20 minutes after the ordeal started!) She had me verify some merchants that we used our credit card for purchases, and she opened my account so I could get gas. She left me with “Ma’am, maybe you should find out your husband’s password.” So needless to say, I was able to get gas for my car about 30 minutes later. I was going to stop by Target, too. But after that ordeal? Yeah right! So what was wrong with the account? Well, we ended up buying a video camera online earlier that day. The fraud department called Tim while he was at work and didn’t have a chance to call them back yet. Apparently, they froze the account until Tim called them to verify that he made the purchase and that the card wasn’t stolen. And the best part of the story is that after telling Tim about my experience, he bought me flowers on the way home from work to brighten my day. What a sweet husband!

Spring Cleaning

Kristen came out yesterday and told me something that I never thought I’d hear in a million years. She said that the beautiful weather we’ve been having lately inspired her to do some spring cleaning and get rid of some old stuff. No that’s not the part that shocked me. What shocked me was that of all things she had in mind to get rid of…she said she was going to get rid of shoes! Yeah, my jaw dropped. I thought maybe the pollen had gone to her head. My shoe-loving Kristen actually getting rid of shoes? While my head still tried to grasp what I heard, she went on to say that her goal was to get rid of two pairs. Well, would you believe that she found 5 pairs of old shoes to toss? Kristen had so much fun throwing out old shoes that she hit the bookshelf next to look for books we can get rid of. And she found some. So now we have a small pile of books on our floor that have to go. (If anyone wants a cookbook called The Man without a Mate, we’ve got one we’re giving away. Yeah, guess I don’t need that one anymore.) But with our love for books and Kristen’s love for shoes, my guess is that the newly created space won’t be vacant for long—especially the spot vacated by her old friends.