Better Late Than Never?

I went to LA for work in June. Stayed at The Standard on Sunset. The total was $526.70. Well, I paid for it, got a receipt and everything. Case closed, right? Riiiiiiiiiiight. Stay with me, we'll revisit the information just mentioned in a minute or so.

The man and I went to the grocery store to get Wilma supplies last night after work. Yes, Wilma is coming. There is yet another hurricane getting ready to smack us around and disrupt our lives. Fun stuff. Good times. Anyway, back to the grocery store... We got a cart full of stuff. You know, the necessities: bread, turkey breast, hot dogs, fish sticks, stuff to make homemade crunch wrap supremes (oh yeah, I'm still obsessed with them). Basically we got a lot of crap food (which I'm totally stoked about) along with the regular healthy stuff.

We snaked our way through the packed aisles, filling up the cart. Made our way through the throngs of hurricane-frenzied Miamians, waited in line, I swiped my card, cashier said in her very best English, "How much money you gots in dat accown? Da musheen be sayin' insuffeeshunt funs". First, way to go, Slick LaQueesha. Didn't you attend the part of customer service training that teaches you not to announce to everyone in line that the customer in front of you has had his/her card declined... and that your little screen says "insufficient funds"? Second, yeah, um, WTF? I know for sure that there was a little less than $500 in there that morning. I started to get that hot feeling you get when you know something bad is going down - that tiny burst of adrenaline twinge. I'm still a little touchy since those bastards stole all my money a couple months ago.

The man paid for the groceries and told me that he was sure it was something simple, and not to worry. We went next door to the bank so I could check my balance at the ATM. It said $0.00. I about went into cardiac arrest thinking that someone had stolen my card info *again*. I was crazy woman the whole way home, and the man kept trying to soothe me telling me that it's no big deal, it will get taken care of, you know - all those things I wanted him to say even if they didn't really do a thing to calm me down. We got home, he said to leave the groceries, and go check with the bank. Isn't he great? I logged into my account online and lo & behold there's a $526.70 charge from somewhere in West hollywood. That would be from The Standard Hotel. 4 MONTHS AFTER I PAID FOR IT. See? I told you it would come full circle.

I talked to the bank this morning and apparently they were transferring over to a new system that week back in June - JUNE - and the bank paid the charge to the hotel, but didn't take the $$ out of my account. Now, I know I rightly owed that money to the bank, but they took 4 months to charge me for it! I also know that I should have noticed that there was an extra 500 bucks in my account back then, but I had expense reports out the wazoo because I was travelling and had work expenses and my own expenses coming in and out of the same account. So, now I'm $526.70 light in my checking account. I got paid today, but that was $526.70 that I was counting on. Can a girl not catch a break once in awhile? I mean, FO REAL YO.

I'd love for one of those Nigerian spammers to email me today asking me to send him $5,000 in order to recover from my most revered ancestor's bank account a sum of 1 million US dollars... I'd love to recount my bank story and ask him for money instead.

BONUS FEATURE: the office war I unwittingly started around here got way worse yesterday and my boss acted shitty to me the whole day. Today it's a little better, but I thought I left all this elementary school behavior behind when I left NYC???

P.S. Wilma, I hate you. I hate you with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.