Fish tanks and Identity theft-Tuesday afternoon

I had a rather chaotic period last week. I think it all started with the fish tank water on Tuesday.

So, with J out of town I was assigned the impossibly hard task of adding 5 gallons of water to his fish tank. I left work an hour early to complete the task. I went to the grocery where I intended only to race in and fill the enormous jug with special water but, while wandering around looking for this magic water, I found myself filling my cart with all sorts of odds and ends. Seeing as how it was 4:30 in the afternoon, I had missed lunch, and it was about 100 degrees F, I bought a box of otter pops, some carrots, and, in a slightly rebellious mood, I picked up a pack of cookies, the white ones with the lemon cream in between. (these were getting me so excited, I have never bought these of course, and have not even had them since P's law school graduation when I was in high school!)

I soon found the water and filled my jug. I then found i could not even lift the thing off the stand and into my cart. So, I pulled the cart really close and just sort of scooted it off. As if fell a good two feet, quite a bit of water went zipping out of this hole in the top (and unfortunately landed on me).

I got up to the register to pay and slid in my debit card. I punched in my code and it said, bank denied. I thought to myself "Bank denied!!!!!!!!???????" I know i have money in my account, what is going on? And that is when it hit my- I had been a victim of Identity theft (and only a week after cancelling my free month membership of identity theft protection which I signed up for accidentally at the bank).

Well, this was not a pleasant discovery. My first thought was, I'm going to have to put back the cookies! Giving myself a shake, I pulled it together (I really wanted those cookies). Thinking fast, I whipped out my credit card and was pleased to see that the payment was accepted.

Well, still filled with inner turmoil, I raced to my car. I threw everything into the car, using a burst of emergency adrenaline to lift the water jug. I hopped in the front seat and simultaneously ripped open the cookies while dialing my bank (lucky I had their card). I was frantically thinking of what to say when I started to punch in the debit card number. That is when i saw it-the name on the card-it said, S. K. (not my name)!!! I had my roommates debit card (must have picked it up accidentally at the Italian Ice store the previous day). Further, I found my own card in my purse! It turns out that I was not a victim of identity theft after all, what joy!

Well, to finish this little portion of the story, I found to my dismay that my poor roomie had discovered her card missing and cancelled it that afternoon. However, her new card has since arrived and all is well.

So, back to me, melting in a 100 degree car, eating cookies. I drove to J's and began the ascent to his apt with the water. 30min later, I reached the top (average time, 2 min per stair) sweating and panting. I hustled myself indoors and collapsed on the floor. Thinking my troubles over, I happily scooted the jug to the tank. I am not sure you can imagine my chagrin at realizing I now had to get the water into the tank (some 5 ft off the floor). I collapsed on the floor again.

After another half hour of struggle I managed to dump the water into a secret lower tank using some brilliant contraption of chairs and shoes and with that, I happily headed back to my car and off on my next adventure.