Venting: The Justice Rant

Not last weekend, but the one before, I somehow managed to overdraw my checking account. (As I think about it, it may have had something to do with my not having gone to the bank for three weeks and just carting my uncashed checks around in my wallet as a reminder to eventually, you know, go to the bank and cash them.)

I have no checkbook. I've never had one. Just the card for me, thanks. This, of course, means that I use my checking account for everything: that $0.99-pack of gum, the $1.69 stick of Blistex, this $3.99 video rental (Thumbsucker - I'm just going to throw this out there right now: I love Keanu Reeves), the $1.99 bottle of chocolate milk, or, how about that $8.99 24-pack of Dr. Pepper?

I paid for all of this stuff with my check card, all while overdrawn.

So, last Tuesday, when I finally got around to the bank to make a deposit, I was somewhat concerned when I saw a seemingly innocuous negative sign put to the right of my balance. I thought about it for a while as I drove to work but couldn't make heads nor tails of it. How could I have negative $200 in my checking account? It just didn't make any sense.

As it turns out, after a little investigating, I found out what was going on, but it still doesn't make any sense. I made ten transactions after overdrawing the account, because my card was never declined. Not once. And the fucking bank charged me $22 for each one, in addition to whatever I paid. That chap stick? Yeah, that cost me $23.69, not $1.69.

I had been charged $220 in overdraft fees for transactions the final sum of which did not exceed $60. The bank was kind enough to forgive half of the fees because I "have such a good record" with them, but I was still irritated. It wasn't until last Friday that I became enraged.

Last Thursday I lost my sunglasses. Couldn't find them anywhere. I was about to drive down to American Fork (again) and I was in a hurry and distracted, so, after checking my car, I must have forgotten to lock the doors. Some time that night, some asshole got in and stole 11 CDs, my owner's manual and registration, and my garage door opener. My garage door opener! The owner's manual? What kind of sick fuck behaves like this? I can understand the CDs - I can -, but the owner's manual? That's just weird and rude.

That Friday morning, as I was making a list of all of the albums I was going to have to buy again, I couldn't escape the feeling that I had been robbed twice that week, and that I was upset not because I was shirking responsibility (I shouldn't have overdrawn my account; I should have locked my car - I get it; I agree), but because the punishment didn't fit the crime.

Shouldn't the bank have charged me the value of the goods that I had purchased instead of some arbitrary fee? Their $22-rule made me wish I would have bought a car instead of Office Space.

Shouldn't some kind of divine, karmic law only have allowed the equivalent of an unlocked door to be taken from my car? I think the change in the tray on the dash would have covered it - $1.62. (They left that, like a shitty tip, to rub it in my face, I guess.)

I suppose, in the end, the upside is that the bastards that robbed my car didn't realize that that 24-pack of Dr. Pepper behind the driver's seat was the most expensive 24-pack of Dr. Pepper ever. $220. (Almost the exact price, as it turns out, I paid to replace the CDs they took.)

That almost made me feel better about things. Almost.

sdrawkcaB

Playing catch-up in reverse:

5. I choked on my water and coughed it out all over my power strip at work and then was too afraid of getting electrocuted to unplug it for about two minutes at which point my fear of burning the building down trumped that so I pulled the plug and - didn't. get. electrocuted. [Sigh of relief.]

4. I've decided that I no longer need to be on time to work, so when I say, "this morning," above, what I'm really saying is, "about twenty minutes ago." (It's 12:52 PM, now.)

3. I went to bed last night at three after staying up way too late for a Superman marathon - we watched Superman, Superman II, and Superman Returns, after which I came to the almost unavoidable conclusion that I would never, ever get this Monday back and that I loved it.

2. I carpooled to American Fork for the Superman marathon with a girl that I dated for about two months and broke up with for the next six about three years ago and her new boyfriend. I still don't know how that happened; it was a little awkward at first, but they’re both much better people than I am and actually really nice, so it was cool (albeit there is a possibility that they were merely making a play for my Dr. Pepper).

1. I saw The Dark Knight on Friday, as part of my friend’s Mormon-ified bachelor party and was moved on several levels, not the least of which being my bowels, as I was holding it, as it were, for the entirety of the two-and-a-fucking-half hours.

Watching People Drown

Everything changes. Everybody changes. I change. Every day. So why does it feel like a tragedy?
(Minipop credit: http://www.flipflopflyin.com/minipops/)

The Real Vampire

What kind of video rental store stocks Blade II and Blade III but not Blade?

Oh yeah, it's my local Blockbuster.

That's crazy, right? I mean, I'm not the only one who thinks that there's something - dare I say it - morally amiss in this situation?

I don't even like that movie, but I have found that it is not healthy to suppress the urge to watch a particular film - no matter how horrible. So now what the hell am I supposed to do?

This store is bleeding me dry.

The Fraternity

Cooke, Montana: In a cheesy, touristy "trading post" where I would eventually buy my bitchin', authentic, made-in-Mexico, straw hat, I was looking at the toy cap guns.

They were the quality variety: metal; with real weight. I was in the act of hefting one, appreciatively, wondering if Eric and Spencer would be willing to wear them around if I bought one for each of us, when I noticed a little dude, no more than six, looking at me from the other side of the rotating wrack.

He was obviously impressed by the fact that he had at last found an "adult" who could appreciate the finer things (toys and a potentially inappropriate reverence for the mock-violence embodied in the pistol). When he realized that I had noticed him there, looking at me, he walked around the wrack to more closely inspect the revolver in my hand.

"Pretty cool?" I suggested, seeking the approval of an obvious authority on the subject.

He nodded, "Yeah." A co-conspirator; soberly cheerful. A confidante.

"Do you have a sister?" he asked, quietly - perhaps not yet quite satisfied that I was, in fact, a compatriot.

"I do."

"You should use these on her."

He held up a package of toy handcuffs, revealing it like a secret weapon, or a rich delicacy.

"Are you going to put those on your sister?" He could hear the approval in my voice.

"Yeah." His sly, confidant smile only hinted at the impending excitement he envisioned.

We consummated the exchange with a solemn high five and casually returned to our respective contingencies, effusing innocence and propriety, our faith renewed and mischief in the making.