Middle of the week

And it feels like there is no end in sight. What's the difference between waking up on a Wednesday morning and waking up on a Thursday? It's still not Friday. Wednesday morning and the week still yawns ahead of you like it might as well be Tuesday.

I had a major (to me) bank card debacle this weekend. I don't know why me and bank cards don't get along. I mean, we have a perfectly good relationship when it's current and valid, but forget to change your address on line or throw the damn thing out a window when you're on hallucinogenics and the bastards turn their back on me.

The last bank card debacle happened to me while in Mexico. I think it was right around the time I started this blog. If I recall (and you go back to June 2005), I was just on the verge of finally receiving a replacement card from my bank (no small feat in Cancun, considering Federal Express is a privilege, not a right). I'd been without it for weeks. I never told the story of how I came to be cardless, so I will now. Maybe at the time I was still thinking (hoping) you all thought I was saint-like and spent all of my time down south volunteering (I did do a lot of that, I just did other things, too).

It all started with accepting an invite to go out with my friend and fellow blogger (I won't incriminate unless she chooses to acknowledge herself). It should be mentioned that I do not club. I think I used to go to Dakota's in the '80s and stand in line for hours to get in, but I was in my early 20s, so don't judge. Cancun has some clubs. I never liked to hang out in the hotel zone because there was no point to it, for a non-clubber. However, every now and again, I could be convinced to go do it. I've been in two clubs in Cancun, for as many times as I have been there/lived there, and one of them is out of business now.

So me and my friend went with her boyfriend to a club called La Boom. We didn't have to pay to get in because he knew people, which is one of the reasons I agreed. He also scored some shit ("Shit" is what I will call this particular party favor from here forward). I was somewhat fired up because I've done shit before, along with other experience-enhancing pharmaceuticals, and I wasn't worried about being in a controlled environment or if the shit was bad shit. I was looking for some fun.

And found it. We had a really good time. Until it really kicked in, coupled with the copious amounts of alcohol we didn't have to pay for and I needed to take a little break in the bathroom. We'd been at the club for a while, I believe, and I was really tired... anyway, I remember seeing my neighbor doing fake tattoos in there, on my way to the john, and I remember being in the stall for a while. I'm famous for houdini-ing (leaving without telling anyone), so after my little break I decided it would be a good time to get the hell out of there. So I did. Made my way to the taxi stand and "negotiated" a fare (it was at the beginning of the hotel zone, so how much could it be? Frankly, I have no idea).

So here's how it went down. I'm in the front seat babbling on and on to the taxista, which is what I do, when I started to prep my money situation. Mexican money feels different than US money. It would almost feel fake if you hadn't been living there and dealing with it for 7 months already. Or on some shit. I suddenly had it in my head that someone had gotten to my purse, taken all my real money and replaced it with fake money. I started throwing it out on the floor, saying, Oh my hell all my money is fake! I'm so sorry, I can't pay you! Somebody replaced all my money with this fake stuff! And then I found my debit card, which feels the same in the states as it does in Mexico, for the record, and proceeded to toss IT out the window. Yes, folks, I threw my debit card out the window. I didn't lose it, like I told my friend who had to facilitate the replacement card. I threw it out the window driving 70 km down Kukulkan Blvd.

The poor taxista was already freaking out because all of my money was on the floor of his cab. Now he was just dumbfounded. Couldn't get to SM 31 fast enough. When we did, he picked up all my money, took $15 MN (the fare for driving around centro), and shoved the rest back into my purse. Apparently I made it upstairs, took off my makeup, got ready for bed and even chatted on the phone with that same friend for a while.

The next morning I woke to realize my stupidity, and swore off mind-expanding drugs forever (but really, never say "forever"). Thus started the gigantic pain in the ass of me getting a replacement card. I had something like $1000 MN to my name and no way to get more until the new card came, and it literally took three weeks for that to happen. Maybe even a month. I can't remember anymore. All I know is that I had to do it twice and then pay for a Federal Express delivery, and then wait in my house forever for the delivery guy to show up. Which he did. And all was right with the world.

Because in Mexico, if all you have is $1000 MN, you can still do stuff, buy some things, eat, be fairly normal. Here, on the other hand, if you change the address online for your Visa cards and assume it means that changed your checking account address too, and don't look at it for a year, until your card is due to expire, and then find out that they already mailed it to your old address, and it won't forward, and you have to re-order it and don't realize that that will block the card in your wallet, you have to look like an idiot at the Babies-R-Us and just not do anything all weekend because you have no access to your cash. It's a nightmare. Fixable, but never the less, a nightmare.

I'm not sure where all this came from this morning, but here it is. Maybe I'm just looking for something to do other than go to work. Because it's a long way to Friday.