So why am I 'covered in bees!!!'? Well, this helps:
I'm in mid-packing mode. That's some stressful shit, my friends. It just all looks like way too much, and at the same time, not enough. A lot of the bulk is linens which will not be returning from the island. I just don't want to arrive there and THEN have to do a bunch of shopping, since I don't believe the dorms to be stocked with anything except toilet paper.
What have I been up to rather than continuing to blog other than trashing my mother's apartment? Hmmm... I got to see Slappy again! Most of you don't know who she is, and that's all right, I suppose, but she knows who she is, so I suppose that's what matters. I'm tired again. Did I mention that?
Slappy is an individual with whom I can play drunken Wii (still the worst name for a video game console EVER) fueled by some damn fine Chianti. I think that sums it up well. No time to play the House drinking game though, which is a shame, because just the drinks on "vasculitis" and "lupus" alone get you pretty trashed. I now covet Wii by the way. If I weren't moving to Grenada, I would get one because I think I'm good at flailing around. Beats the pesky precise hand eye coordination of other games. I also am really good at breaking things, and being involved in a video game while flailing is an EXCELLENT way to do it.
And Zelda is interesting. I have a mean streak when I play video games, thus I discovered that one can hack at strangely animated goats with your Wii sword and the goats will turn red, charge off, and then ram you. I could spend hours doing that... particularly if I were drinking Chianti.
So I spent a couple of days over in Charlotte, and then drove Slappy back to Greenville to help light a packing fire under me, because in the end game, my response to this sort of thing can be... less than useful... as in... well, instead of packing, I think I'll hide under a table and suck my thumb.
I was trying to get my last things in order as well, a task made exceptionally difficult by my mother's apartment staff (who never EVER actualy "staffs" since that would involve being in office), and even more so, by Bank of America.
Oh, Bank of America...
I have been trying to set up a local account in North Carolina since my normal bank isn't over here... so I can either have my parents mail my stuff to that bank using their oh so not convenient 1980s bank by mail system, or I could open a local account, PREFERABLY with my father's bank for ease of depositing my loan checks. One would expect such a thing as the opening of a student checking account to be easy.
One might not expect the lengths some people will go to for the purpose of being incompetent. So I applied for my account some time ago, was approved, and they sent me my card at my father's address. Groovy! Went to activate card with the number I had given them (my cell) and NO. Wha? Told me to go to the branch. Fine, no worries, whatever. I went to the branch; they said it had been CANCELED immediately, though what they *actually* meant was that it had been LOCKED. The critical difference is that locked implies an account that is still open with MY MONEY IN IT, but will not let me have access to that money because apparently, Bank of America is full of thieves. Sue me for saying it, assholes, I dare you.
Slappy and I ended up standing there for a VERY long time (no seat offered; no private office) while they tried to fix the problem, albeit by a very nice but completely ineffective woman. As she's filling out a *new* application form, I ask "whoa, wait a second... is this going to pull ANOTHER hard inquiry on my credit report??" "Oh no!" she assures me.
Guess what's on my credit report this morning? Ooh, the letter I write them will be sweet. Oh, but with the account, they have to send another card, even though I'm leaving for the Caribbean on... you know, Tuesday. Whatever. She gets me a temporary debit. All right, that works. My parents can send me the real one.
This is about an hour in, by the way. She leaves at some point to check on something in the back and asks me to guard the computer screen since my information was on it and it's out in the open and all. Sigh.
Comes back for the temporary card... hands it to me, yeah, we're going to be out of ther... no... no... B of A locked that too with someone's 25 dollars in it, which is weird since that is NOT what I authorized from my initial account; it was higher, so when I find the charges taken out, I'm contesting them, at which point, I'll probably have to deal with another fraud alert on my credit report, which at LEAST means the bastards would have to consult me to do another non permissible pull (illegal, by the way).
So this is clearly going to take a while, so *I* ask if we can sit down, and they point toward the general chairs. Fine.
They come over and honestly say "Apparently, there was a woman born on your birthday in 1910 that has your name and social security number... so it's bringing up a fraud thing."
Do not say that to me with a straight face. My name is not a common one, particularly in its gloriously long form. I find it VERY VERY difficult to believe that there was a woman born in 1910 with my birthdate and my social security number and my name. Now... since I was born in 1980, the more OBVIOUS conclusion, if one wants to apply Occam's Razor to the dilemma, is that somewhere, at some point, at some point in the distant past, a B of A employee mistyped a SINGLE digit and turned 1980 into 1910. That would just be MY guess.
What's it mean? They won't unlock my account or release my funds until I go to the social security administration, which has my accurate name and dob on file, and get a print out PROVING that I'm me. Apparently, the fact that I have a driver's license, international driver's license, AAA card, several credit cards, a social security card, and a FRIGGING PASSPORT are not sufficient evidence. No... we need a print out from a government office.
And I'm left without a usable checking account except my accounts in California.
In a bit of either poor planning on Bank of America's part or good planning on Wachovia's part, there was a large Wachovia branch in walking distance.
I strode into Wachovia and asked the bank officer if he could help me since Bank of America is clearly incompetent. He asked me if I was just learning that *now*. Heh heh heh heh. He put me in with a banking official in a closed office, and the first thing said banking official did was to ask Slappy and myself if we would like to SIT DOWN as is social convention for people who were not raised in barns.
My accounts were setup within 15 minutes. He even typed faster. During the process, I told him about BofA and at the mention of guarding my own privacy info he said "Whoa, bank of ghetto!" Indeed.
So I'm using this space to say, if you want an account, Wachovia's great, but pretty much, don't go with Bank of America... because they're incompetent. On an unrelated Bank of America route, I once told them they were violating the FCRA, and they asked me what it was and if I would send them a copy of it. Don't go with Bank of America.
And to any BofA officials reading this, if you're offended, stop sucking so much. That'll fix everything.
Anyway, also adding to my anxiety level was getting a call from my admissions counselor late last week where she said "Hi... I was wondering if you were still planning to attend SGU?" AHHHHHH!!!!!!! Don't do that! Apparently, I hadn't sent in my preadmissions paperwork that they send you on CD, which is apparently very very important, though to be fair, they said absolute deadline on 12/15th and I got it on 12/13, which is cutting a bit close. But fortunately, it wasn't as absolute as they would indicate, but I still would recommend NOT cutting that close.
If you don't turn in your pre-reg forms, you don't get a registration voucher. If you don't get a registration voucher, they won't let you register. If you don't register, well... start selling sarongs or weed until you can get the airfare home.
And... covered in bees!!!!
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