My Really Stupid Moment
June 27, 2009
Griping on the phone about a recent Walgreen’s gift card purchase, I couldn’t understand why they actually require you to use either a debit card or cash. “Lucky I actually had some cash on me,” I grumbled, “what a waste of time that would have been to have to go home and come back again!”
The 4-minute drive distance aside because, yes, I am that lazy and gas conservative, I hate hate hate purchasing anything with cash. We know how cash disappears from my wallet; it’s my biggest PF blind spot in budget tracking. And using cash means no 5% cash back on drugstore purchases on the Chase CC. Boo and boo.
More griping ensued along the lines of “and they only offer a $50 GC option online. What is this? Do they just NOT want you to spend money there??” Given some of the attitudes encountered by fellow couponers and bloggers, this isn’t a totally unjustified question.
Then, “Ugh, I probably would have just called it a day, since I wasn’t going back to the bank to withdraw more cash so I could buy the darn thing. I never use debit cards, I don’t even know my PIN!”
“…… Didn’t you say you went to the bank?”
“Yes.”
“……. ??”
“What?”
“Isn’t that the same PIN?”
“As the what? …. oh. OH. *sigh* I’m an idiot.”
In my defense, for some reason I was thinking of my credit card cash advance PIN. I have no idea what those are because I never use them. Can I be forgiven for completing forgetting that I can use my bank card as a debit card because I never ever do? No, because I constantly see people using their debit cards and think to myself, “I don’t like debit!”
Had a stupid moment lately? Please do share! 🙂
First of all, I don’t think you’re stupid for forgetting. At least, not if you hate to use debit. It means, you don’t really use it. So it wouldn’t jump to the forefront of your mind.
Second, I have TONS of stupid moments. My brain flits around to so many random subjects a day, I inevitably find something idiotic to think of.
I can’t remember any recent ones, per se. But one of my absolute favorites was about a year ago. I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. For whatever reason, I started thinking of maps. And maps’ scale. I really just don’t do well with geography in general and scale distance is not something my brain translates very well.
So then I started thinking, “Man, it’d be really nice to use bigger maps for people like me. I wonder if anyone’s ever done a one-to-one map.”
About half a second later, I realized that a one-to-one scale map would be… as big as the whole friggin world. I shook my head remembering that I was an honors student. Seriously. I keep waiting for someone to come around and demand I give back my gold tassels.
Hah! I’m so glad you shared that.