I, crazy

So I was having one of those days.

You know, the ones where you wake up and your head feels like a ten pound block of snot. And your nose is so stuffed up that it takes an act of congress just to move air in and out of your body. And just your luck the cupboard is bare and there’s an empty jug of milk in the frig so you pop a cough drop and head to the store. And you blow your nose before you leave the car, but by the time you make it across the parking lot it’s like HELLO, BRAINS! I see you running down my face, and you don’t have any tissue in your pocket so you run to the bathroom and find a stall with sufficient amount of toilet paper, blow your nose and stand there admiring the shoes of the lady next to you. When suddenly the silence in the ladies’ room is shattered by a piercing chorus of “It is well, with my soul!” and you barely have time to wonder what exactly is well with her soul in the Target bathroom before you bust into uninvited snorts of laughter. Except, if you recall, your nose is completely stuffed up so your giggles sound more like a flock of honking geese buzzing the bathroom.

So I was having one of those days.

And I decided to take some DayQuil. ‘Cause, you know, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

I don’t know what they put in that stuff that they don’t print on the label, but I know it’s in there, whatever it is, because ten minutes later I was completely unfit to drive or operate machinery. I must have also been one card short of a full deck, if you know what I mean, because I chose that lovely moment to sit down and glance through the mail, also examine the most recent bank statement.

And lo and behold and the very first page I find myself staring down a very suspicious charge. A charge of $9.49 from Amazon.com and it might as well have been written in blood and highlighted with a neon yellow marker, because no one in this family orders from Amazon.com except me… and that $9.49 charge was definitely NOT mine.

And then, you know, I heard a little DING! and it was like an energy saving bulb lit up in my head (because I’m green like that, doncha know) as I realized some thief had hacked my Amazon.com account and gone on a $9.49 spending spree. I mean, you hear about these things happening to people but you never think it could happen to you (and I could totally do a commercial for credit monitoring right about now).

So I immediately did the most responsible thing in such a situation. I had a minor panic attack. Then I looked around for a paper bag to breathe in, but I couldn’t find one, so I made do with a WalMart bag (not recommending that, by the way). And after that I did the second most responsible thing. I got on the phone with Amazon.com customer service.

Slight tangent: When I was a freshman at Auburn I had a biology lab with a girl who was a natural repellent of technology. While the rest of us turned in nicely typed and printed assignments, she’d whip out these sheets upon sheets of handwriting, equivalent to size 24 font, because her computer was perpetually broken. I have no clue how she continually managed to mess up her operating system, but I do know whenever she’d enter the biology room the computers would unplug their cords, run across the floor and fling themselves out the window.

Yeah, she was that bad.

Anyway, one day in class she was lamenting about her most recent customer support call and how she couldn’t understand a word the technician said. She was like “I think he was Indian or something. Hey, Jackie, you grew up over there. You should call for me because you’d understand him better than I would.” And after I scraped my jaw off the floor with a spatula I pointed out that India and Indonesia are not even remotely comparable… except that they both begin with I and exist outside of the USA. Then I told her that growing up in a foreign country does not automatically qualify me to interpret HAPPEian (Heavily Accented, Poorly Passable English). Indonesian, maybe. ESL (English Second Language), hmmm… no.

So back to sitting on hold with Amazon.com customer service waiting to talk to a real person. I didn’t have to wait long before I hear a voice say “Ahh-low, by nabe ish (insert name I can’t pronounce). Please ask-plain de nadure ob your probleem.”

Umm… say again?

It took me ten minutes and way too many I didn’t understand that can you repeat? for me to “ask-plain” the problem and be told I needed to contact my bank account to have the charge disputed.

Fine. So I listened to another automated menu and pressed the appropriate buttons and then I heard “Ahh-low, by nabe ish (insert name I can’t pronounce).”

Oh poo.

Basically what I was able to glean from this one was that she couldn’t do anything until I had Amazon.com review the transaction. Starting to feel like a dog chasing my tail here, but whatever.

“Ahh-low, by nabe ish (insert ANOTHER name I can’t pronounce).”

To this lady I explained in detailed the horrific nature of my account being hacked and an unauthorized charge to my bank account. I was hoping to make the issue seem as dire as possible so she’d take me seriously, what I really did was make her question my mental stability. Especially when, while waiting to see the details of the transaction, she asked me twice if I was sure I didn’t make the purchase myself.

No, I would absolutely remember making such a purchase. Yes, I’d know if someone else in my household did it.

But when she asked me for the third time if I’d purchased “Keif Oo-ban” music I just about lost it. This lady had me questioning my resolution and I admit I glanced through the CDs in the cabinet, but NO, I DIDN’T BUY KEITH URBAN MUSIC! I mean, I like Keith Urban and all, he’s like basically my favorite country singer, but I pretty much have absolutely no use for a CD. WHY WOULD I BUY A KEITH URBAN CD?!

“It say he-ah it not CD. It down load mushik.”

Right about that time I happened to glance over at my Iphone and it was like DING! another one of those energy saving light bulbs atop my head (man, I’m green). And DUH!, there was the downloaded Keith Urban music right there in my Itunes.

I seem to have died of embarrassment at that point and totally blocked out whatever I said to customer service lady, but I think it was something like “Um. Oh. Yeah. I guess I just remembered that I did buy that. So. Well. IhaveacoldandI tookDayQuilearlierandthatcompletelyexplainsthisbehaviorandthanksforallyourhelpandhaveagoodday. Bye.”

Pretty sure I’m mortified enough never to consume liquid crazy in a bottle ever again. But I was still sick as a dog and collectively we had another week worth of HELLO BRAINS RUNNING DOWN MY FACE! yet to deal with, so I had plenty of time to discover a new alternative to cold medicine. Guaranteed to scare your brains right back into your head, paten pending.

Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with the making of the video Caleb is watching for the first time, and it is intended to startle. Proceed with caution if you are easily frightened or prone to seizures.