Argh. Argh. Arrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhha!

Had a fraJABulous birthday, if I do say so myself. I’m not big on the YUUGGGEE celebrations – a queit night at home, with hubby, and music, and the gifts of the sparkly (matching sapphire and diamond earrings and necklace – LOVELY) , is really all a gal needs. See – I’m acting like an old married lady all READY….

The immeadiate aftermath of the day of Birth – not QUITE so much fun. So, right? I’m the money person in the house – C actually DOES hand over his checks to me, and we like it. Anyhow, being with the whole shared account & online banking & me hopelessly nosy bit, I told C that I would stay out of our account for 10 days – from the 3rd to the 13th, to give him a chance to get (and SUPRISE) me with a gift.
Now. He had mentioned, idly, earlier in the week, that we were scraping the bottom of the barrell, moneywise, and he had transferred some money. I figured his paycheck just hadn’t cleared yet, and thought nothing more of it.
Sunday though (the day after me b-day) I was chomping at the bit to go and take a peek at the account…..and we are almost at zero – again. Huh?

So – I start reviewing entries, and I’m reading, and I’m getting upset/excited/puzzled. Cuz see, either C had gone ALL out for my Bday, and only the jewelry had gotten here, or C had lost his everloving mind and went on a shopping spree, or someone was hacking our account. 

"Love – did you get me anything else for my birthday?" 

"No babe….." 

" Darling, have you been paying other peoples phone bills and shopping at buy.com and setting up singles profiles for yourself??"

"Uh – no, babe….why?"

AIUAPIUWS!!!!???ODHU!)&#)*&#(ITOUER*&)W#*ODHEJSH!!!!!!!!!HKJDHF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!IUEDIORU! (that would be me, freaking the fuck out over the fact that someone had siphoned 1200.00 out of our account, and it was Sunday, and the next day was a holiday and the BANKS. WERE. CLOSED.)

So, between Saturday Night, and the time I woke up this morning (6:00am, as a certain human entity other than myself decided that he NEEDED to be at work at 6:30) and got back home, and sat down in front of the PC – they had CONTINUED their spending spree, and at this point, were up to SEVENTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. (this is me, pissing myself!) Mind you – the thing is – we almost NEVER have that much money in the account. The only reason we HAD that much is because we just paid off those bills, and C had just gotten paid.

So, I spent the majority of today either online with the bank, on the phone with the bank, or physically IN the freaking bank signing affidavits, repeating my social security number for the UMPTEENTH time, and slowly convincing these people that no matter WHAT their little PC screen said, there was no way in HELL someone used my PIN to make a bill payment to AT&T – I even talked to AT&T and CONFIRMED that they don’t need a PIN in order to pay a bill.

The bank guy thinks that there is still MORE stuff waiting to be posted to our account (there are a LOT of entries for 1.00 – which means that the ACTUAL cost of whatever the bleepbleepingtyblip they brought hasn’t come through yet) but, as my card is now ‘Hot’ (and cut into wee pieces) they should catch it before it runs through the little bit of money left in our account, and starts causing bouncing and overdrafts and other horrors that I would rather not consider. 

The REALLY creepy part? I still have my card. I didn’t LOSE my card. I didn’t LEAVE my card someplace (I’m fucking anal about that damn card.) I rarely use it online. So. What is REALLY freaking me out is that – some business – some LOCAL business – that I patronize, and give my money too, STOLE A COPY OF MY DEBIT CARD. And the REALLY messed up part is – I’m almost certain I know WHAT store – as they would have had a chance to not only get a copy of my credit card, they ALSO would have my home address (for delivery) which is my billing address. That – that is the part that REALLY pisses me off. And it was funny, because this store – I made a large purchase – a piece of furniture. And while I was there – paying – I saw a woman come up and buy a roughly 700 dollar set – with cash. And I though – Hmm.. I wonder what would make me pay cash for something that big – I wouldn’t want to carry THAT much cash on me, ya know? I always said that it was running more of a risk to give your credit card to your waitress than it was to steal a number online – humph. I guess I was right. 

And I’m still – steaming. Hot. HOT. I know I’m not liable for any of it – but STILL. I’m crazy bout mah money. I swear – if I knew – for sure – it would be ON.