I'm still dealing with some of the fallout from my temporary brain seizure in Italy last month. The shear volume of paperwork involved in getting your life back in order should, if nothing else, serve as a useful reminder to be more careful in the future.
The latest things taken care of include my bank card. I've been waiting more than two weeks for it to arrive in the mail. I finally got fed up waiting and walked into the local CIBC branch and told them why I needed a new one.
"Oh, they never send those things out through the mail. You have to come in here and get one," I was told.
Of course.
But at least I have a bank card again. I also have a big "Warning! Was stupid and lost a ton of ID and is a prime candidate for identity theft" sticker slapped on my bank account. I imagine it doesn't actually say that, but it might as well.
The next racket was with credit agencies. Again, I need to put warning on my credit just so there aren't any problems. That warning lasts six years, so that's a healthy does of paranoia, right there. I know it needs to be there and I'm glad it is, but the first time my credit card gets frozen because some alert goes off that I'm buying something in Ottawa instead of Iqaluit, I'm going to curse a blue streak. First at the banks and credit agency, and then at myself.
So, in trying to make myself feel a bit better, I managed to accidentally stumble on things far stupider than losing most of your ID in one fell swoop while puttering online. Fortunately I found this article, where this woman searched the "stupid" tag on Flickr and came up with the 10 stupidest pictures on the site. My tops for the stupidest pic has to be the one below.
(h/t to Andrew Sullivan for the link)
It's the sandals holding up the power bar that gets me, every time.
Or I could have been stupid and spent $20 on something like this.
I admit that I don't always get my goatee perfectly aligned, but really, I'm not sure what's stupider....the person who thought this would be a useful invention or the one who ends up buying it.
And finally, at least I was never stupid enough to try and eat this.
By the way, I now officially love the phrase "weapon of cardiovascular mass destruction."
So yes, dumb, but it can always be worse.
Last Five
1. The sharpest thorn - Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint*
2. I will - The Beatles
3. Top yourself - The Raconteurs
4. Streets of sorrow/Burmingham Six - The Pogues
5. Two - Ryan Adams
4 comments:
I worked in retail in a bank and with respect to your statement on the visa and different locations just call your visa before you leave and tell them where you are going. It will prevent you from encountering the dreaded freeze.
Thanks for the advice. I pretty much know I'm going to have to do that from now on, but it's just a matter of remembering to do it. On top of everything else that needs to get done when I travel, I now have to remember to call Visa and ask them to pretty please not freeze my card.
Re: the hassle you have to go through after the fact being enough to teach you not to make the same mistake twice...
I whole-heartedly agree.
In fact, just to avoid the hassle of doing this claiming purchases to replace lost baggage etc thing... I'm ONLY taking a carry-on for my upcoming trip. I've had enough headaches and forms and panic attacks over stupid receipts.
I think the best part of my whole fiasco...was filling in the "name of store" box on my claim form...
all the receipts were in Greek. So I just made squiggles that looked suspiciously like Inuktitut syllabics.
Mwa haha.
yes, but even people who haven't had everything stolen have to call credit card companies before they travel - at least on this side of the atlantic. but then, we also have PINs on ALL cards so that they can't be used so easily when stolen. srd
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