Thievery!

I got pinged in the whole Target brouhaha about their data breach. Some brigand used my debit card to "buy" $100 worth of stuff at a gas station in the NYC area. I think it was probably an ATM withdrawal since not sure how you could get $100 exactly of gas. If it was gas then he must have gotten like 10 gallons of if it since NY state gas is taxed all which way to tomorrow.

In the summer of 2013 we were broken into (Another thing that happened during the blog hiatus is that we bought a house!) and it was another case of minor items and major headaches. In both these cases I am amazed at the pettiness of the crimes.  The robber in our house break in took my Xbox 360, an eight year old laptop on its last legs, our Wii (leaving behind the controllers and sensor bar. So, he got a paperweight essentially), some Blu Ray movies, and postage stamps. If I had the gall and balls to steal someone's financial info or break into their house then I would need go to all out and take as much as I can. I mean, of course I am going to take this oven mitt that says "Hail to the Chef" on it! I just broke into someone's house so I might as well! The cops came and dusted for prints in this case, but they got very little good ones (I knew TV shows made it seem like evidence gathering is easy, but even I was blown away at how hard it is to get a good fingerprint. Basically, cover your house in wood and dust every day so you can get a decent chance at it) and the thief remains at large. The dark part of me sometimes hopes dead in a ditch, but I remind myself that I was fortunate enough to buy a new XBox and not have to steal someone's.

Both of these cases brought out my bonkers side. As my mother always told me "Defend yourself like a cat on its back" and her ever fatalistic paranoid world view colors mine even though I feel that much more moderate (A WYHAK post will have to be that you are doomed to become your parents) of a person. I come unglued when it comes to debt collectors and money problems. I pay my bills. If, I owe you money then I will do so promptly, but the number of times I've gotten calls from debt collectors because of a clerical error. Oh man..that is like three calls and all three times I went nuts!

In the case of the robbery, I came back to the house and could not find one of our cats. I called out for her and she never came. I assumed that maybe she had lept out the open window to the backyard, but she is skittish of the outdoors and our backyard fence to high for her. I feared the worst, that she brigands had taken her and were slowly torturing her! As minutes turned to hours it got even worst. I knew (Just knew and still feel it to this day) it had to be bastard kids behind us and I stomped up and down the block  ready to absolutely murder anything that came in my path. Literally, for I was armed with my flashlight and whatever weapons I could find.  I stood out in front of their house with two knives hidden on my person and my collapsible baton ready to go sick house. Thankfully that never happened (and they didn't call the cops) and we found our cat hiding in a crawl space later that evening. I've never felt so mad. Never so blinded. This is what people must mean when they talk about road rage. Getting upset because someone cut you off is not road rage. Slipping off one of your house keys from the ring while it is still in the ignition so you can poke the guy in the eyeball when you surely catch up to him is road rage. Afterwards, with my cat and family in my arms, I felt so dumb for being so mad, but it is a much better me that can resist.

With the swindler I went nuts on the bank guy. While in college I fell for a phishing scam and have since been very nervous whenever someone calls me about a financial matter. It did not help that they guy from Huntington Bank sounded like a robot on Quaalude. He said his name was Tim and all I could think of was "How phonier a name can you get!?" Surely this was the Bulgarian mob trying to take all 800 of my dollars in my bank account. It marked the first time I ever said "Let me talk to your supervisor!" which he said he could not do, but that I could call the bank's customer service line to work it from the other end. Oh yeah, I would buddy. I would.

When I called it turned out to be all so true. It was also embarrassing since to prove that you are indeed who you are my bank asks people to state the amount of their last deposit. I said something horribly crass and elitist (I don't know. I'm professionally poor!) but hell if I knew! And I was mad! Once we finally got on the same page that I was I and the bank was the bank I told the lady "I kind of freaked out at the guy who called me. If you know Tim in Electronic Loss Prevention, please say I am sorry." Her response? "Oh, let me connect you to him."

SHIT!