A bittersweet return...

I know it's been over a month since last I posted (excluding the videos I posted), so in advance, I'm sorry. But you can stop judging me with your holier-than-thou attitude, okay? I saw you, sitting on your couch, eating chocolate bon-bons, watching your "stories". Sitting there in your "Power Ranger" under roos, with Cheeto-stained bathrobe, scratching your butt, awash in your own filth.

...Oh, that wasn't you? Well, who the hell's house was I standing outside of? Well, that will probably be another restraining order. Moving on, it's good to be back in the saddle like Heath Ledger on Jake Gyllenhal. The horse people and sheep molesters finished their big wingding and moved on and then some NCAA regional action and I just had nothing to say. Well, that's kinda still the case. Except it's not. Like last week.

Last week was, for the most part, normal. Except for three kinda big things. I will now proceed to list them. As follows:

1) My youngest, Ainsley (2 years)got really sick due to a sinus infection. When I mean sick, I mean continous coughing, being irritable and high fever. It got so bad with her fever getting as high as 104.4, which almost meant an ER visit. And since she was not feeling good, she was sharing our bed. Needless to say, not much sleep was gotten all the way around.

2) My computer hard drive decided it was time to die. My 500 GB hard drive. My 500 GB hard drive that is almost filled up with 330 GB's of MP3s, and the rest filled with programs, family pictures and two complete seasons of my all time favorite show, Mystery Science Theater 3000. So, the hardware dying was not a happy development. And that's a lotta data to try and transfer.

3) This one kinda takes the cake. Back in November, I switched banks and joined Wachovia. Big mistake. To start with, their policy is apparently to put holds on random deposits for new accounts for the first 90 days after the account is opened. This was a pain but at least if I knew about it, I could deal with it. The teller would inform me that my check was being held and I would grin and bear it. Now so far, besides the inconvience factor of not having my money immediately available to me(which was a BIG inconvience), the only problem was the fact that none of this was discussed with me when I opened the account. Well, the "probationary" (or whatever the hell you want to call it) period had ended so everything was peachy. So, two weeks ago, I deposit my paycheck and everything is cool, the bank teller lady doesn't say crap and I pocket my receipt and head down the road. Fast forward to to Tuesday morning. I stop and get gas and my account balance is substantially less than it should be. I get to work, go online and check things out. Apparently, I have been hit for (are you ready for this?) $280 in overdraft fees. Of course, this prompts some questions that need answering. First and foremost, what the hell? I do some "research" (I'll spare you the numerous back and forth phone call blow by blow) and come to find out that my bank does this thing where if you have had overdrafts (and I had, like two pay periods back), they will put a hold on random deposits. If that's their policy, that's fine but the pricks should have said that was their policy upfront (which they didn't). And to top it all off, the kindly teller lady mentioned NOTHING about any hold. And yes, I should have checked my receipt because I should have known to be my bank's watchdog. But I didn't and proceeded to treat it as a normal weekend in which we did the grocery shopping (and since my brother and his wife are still living with us, not a cheap thing) and took the family out for dinner. As well as other little charges going through. Which totalled $280 in fees.

For each of these situations, there was a resolution. Only one of the three was not a positive conclusion. Can you guess which one?

Here's how it shook down:

1) The very next day, Ainsley's fever was gone and she started getting better. She is almost back to normal, although she is doing the "terrible two's" dance right now, so give and take I suppose.

2) My hard drive is still covered under warranty by the retailer where I purchased it through. So I just have to pull off the data on there, put it on different drives (which two of my friends have let me borrow hard drives for this purpose) and send back to the supplier for a new one.

3) So, I fought and argued and Wachovia decided they would reimburse me. The entire $280? Well, of course not, silly. It wasn't a bank error, it was mine, didn't you know? So, how much did I get back? $70. Now, I don't know about you, but since Megan lost her job last year in March and got a job making A LOT LESS, we live paycheck to paycheck (and sometimes that isn't enough to pay all the bills). So, I really couldn't afford not to have that $210. But they didn't care. So neither should, I suppose. Hell, my mother was even prompted to vulgarity. She said prostitutes make out better than I did, sometime they even get dinner first. I love my mom. Needless, I'm moving my business elsewhere. Also needless to say, by Friday, I was ready to indulge in copious amounts of adult beverages.

So, if you take nothing else away form this blog, at least take this: steer well clear of Wachovia for your banking or finacial needs. They don't care about you and will screw you at the first opportunity.

Sorry, if this blog was not filled to the brim with more hilarity, but it's been a downer couple of weeks. I promise, I'll do better next time. So, in effort to save this one, I present for your consumption "Coming To Alderaan". Enjoy!



Ahaa!