alaspooryorick

• A couple weeks ago, I received a "changes to cardmember agreement" mailing from one of my credit card companies. One of the new provisions was that payments would be allocated to lower apr balances first. Now, I don't maintain balances usually, and I don't even use that card - it's been sitting in a desk drawer unactivated. But no, uh uh, fuck that, bzzzzt! Yet another way to rape the consumer. So, I finally got around to calling them this morning to cancel that card. Once I entered my account number and zip code, the friendly but mechanical female voice read off my credit limit and my $175 balance. Wait! Whoa! Balance?! (cf, the unactivated card).
  
  I hung up and dropped by their (Bank of America) web site to find out the low down. I signed up for online access and browsed over to my account activity. There's mostly gas station/convenience store charges. They're from Amoco and Shell - I only use Citgo when possible. There's also a charge on there from... Wal-Mart.
  
  As. If.
  
  Some fucker's using my account, and to top it off, they're using it at Wal-Motherfucking-Mart. My spit is too good for the ground that a Wal-Mart sits on, k? The card has a $14k limit, and they're shopping at Wal-Mart?! So, I call back and wait through the automated stuff again. After they read out my balance info again, they say "press star to repeat this," but don't give you any other choices. I'm like WTF? But being fairly smart, I press zero, and it says to the effect of "transferring you to somebody whose decision-making abilities are not limited to the dozen buttons on your phone."
  
  So, I disputed the charges to a human, and they transferred me to the fraud department. I rattled off my address, mother's maiden name, and last 4 digits of my SSN three times to three different people. One of these people told me that, yeah, they put an alert on there and were blocking use of the card because of suspicious activity. Apparently, the fuckbag was also trying to get cash and shopping at A&F and whatnot and the number of charges in a single day sounded the alarm (when were they gonna tell ME about it?). They asked if I was willing to press charges, and I'm like "oh, hell yeah! that p.o.s. bought shit at Wal-Mart!" So, they're crediting my account pending my filling out some affidavit they're sending me. And they're gonna do their investigating and shit.
  
  I received a letter a few days ago from Progressive Insurance, saying that the laptop of a claims adjuster had been stolen, and that said laptop had info on it that included my Social Security Number. Niiiiice. Thinking this would lead them in the right direction, I told BofA of the letter. After I got off the phone, I retrieved the letter. It mentioned that the laptop was password-protected and that they thought the thief was just out for the hardware, anyhoo. Well, it's not like you can't get around that crap. Especially if the hard drive's not encrypted, right?
  
  But then it occurred to me... my nephew is the likely culprit. I wish I could say it's un-motherfucking-believable, but it's not. sigh.
• The heater core in the truck I just bought is leaking. Steamy windows and that sickly sweet smell when I turn the heat on. I picked up a bottle of radiator stop leak on the way into work this morning and will apply it probably tomorrow morning. I brought the bike into work today, and it's air cooled, so I thought it was pretty funny that I was picking up a bottle of radiator additive."
• I'm listening to Johnny Cash's "American IV: The Man Comes Around". I like "Unchained" better as an album, but I wanted to hear "Tear Stained Letter". If you get the chance, thank Rick Rubin for bringing the Man in Black back to us for the final decade of his life.

I'm gonna write a tear-stained letter. I'm gonna tell you one more time, that you still could reconsider, and come back to being mine.