Today (or last night ... whatever) was Father's Day, and I knew we were going to go out -- again -- to the only Chinese place my parents tolerate. Father called this afternoon and said that we were taking my car. Well, they have an "issue" with me driving my car with less than a half-full tank, and I was around there. I didn't want to receive any grief from my parents, and besides, My Fucking Father hasn't been too much of a dick to me lately, so I thought I might as well make them happy and fill up the tank before they come home, and then leave it outside.
When my brother comes over, they instead choose to take his (new and impressive-looking) car. Why the hell did I take the car out then? I might as well have put the car back in the garage in that case, or even not fill up the tank at all. But I can't just turn the engine on so I can drive it back into the garage and then just turn it off; not getting the engine oil to a boil will destroy it. So after dinner I decide I might as well go get some coffee. I had some forms to fill out and some mail to look through, so I'll have some things to do.
But I had one other, um, hang-up that I was determined to follow: I will not spend cash today. It's been slipping through my hands for days now, and I decided that today I wasn't going to do that. Of course, now that I needed to go out, and I had to somehow pay for the coffee. Which leads me to another hand-up: I was going to use only my American Express card, not my Visa. The Visa has a lower interest rate, but I think it's best to use my AmEx once in a while for my credit score, I should only use one card at a time, and besides, I think the Visa could use a little rest. I don't resume using it until I haven't used it for one full billing cycle, and to make sure of that, I won't use it for two months. I'm in the first week of that right now.
So I drive out into the Sunday night with just my American Express, knowing that some places don't take it. Did you know that the processing fee for charges to AmEx are higher than for those of other cards, and that's why most places take, say, Visa but don't take American Express? (Those long-ago Visa commercials were right.) I went to Uptown for coffee girding myself for the possibility that I might not even get any coffee.
The two places I patronize the most do not take AmEx. They take Visa. They take MasterCard. They take Discover. But no, not American Express. Daunted greatly, I decided to hit this other place in Lyn-Lake a boho area running parallel and sort of like Uptown. I get in there and ask the girls if they take AmEx. She doesn't know. Well, I'll just make it and then we'll charge it and see if they take it, I guess, ha-ha. Ha-ha. I was afraid this was going to happen, but I couldn't muster enough strength to be an asshole and just leave. So I wait for her to bring out this frothy stone-blasted mug with ample whip cream and a cracker right in the middle. Not a bad way to present a mocha; maybe I'll come back when I decide I can use cash.
So she takes my card and runs it through her machine thingy, and after several seconds receipt slowly oozes out of it. "It takes it!" I exclaim in hope. Nope, the girl said, it says it's rejected. Then the guy at the counter right behind her breaks his concentration from working on his MacBook and says they don't take American Express. Thanks for letting me know -- I just wish you were more attentive in working.
So, what to do? I have this beautiful hot mocha right in front of me; I couldn't just say I don't want it, can I? No, I can't. So I take out my money and pay him, which ruins my entire self-edict about not using it today. So I had to find and/or do something positive and/or productive, which, thankfully, I did: I filled out all the forms I needed to (when I usually do that later in the week, which I shouldn't), and I got caught up in some expense paperwork.
Sadly, paying cash for this runs into my final hang-up for the night: If I was going to have a cash-related expense, I need to have at least two. Getting money, though, counts, so after I got back home, I put money out from under my mattress and stuck it in my wallet. But again, all this would've been avoided if I didn't use my car, which wouldn't've happened if I didn't decide to fill up my tank that afternoon, which would't've happened if my parents didn't go back on their weird when my father said we were using my car. And I dragged my trusty clunker all over Minneapolis this whole night seeking one coffeehouse that takes American Express ... and concluding that there ain't one.
Total. Systemic. Failure.
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