Super freakin’ annoyed thanks to my local Bank of America branch. Avoid 9125 West Sam Houston Parkway North if you need competent banking services. Bought American Express Gift Cheques for the family. Moron teller who sold them to me *told* me to sign the cheques at the top. Didn’t even flinch because, you figure, the teller would know what they’re doing, right? Wrong! Bzzzt! Turns out I was making the cheque payable to Mark Shields. Say what? That’s not good. Called American Express and, thankfully, they had customer service available to tell me that I could make the cheque payable to whomever I wanted to give it to by countersigning and filling out the Payable To field. The Big Drawback now is that the cheque could only be deposited in that person’s bank account. That’s it. If I hadn’t signed the cheque then it could have been used as cash anywhere and everywhere. So, yeah, I’m pissssssssed! $1.25 a pop and I bought 12 of them. That’s $15 wasted on something I could have just written a personal check out for. Bah frickin’ humbug. Can’t wait until Monday morning when I can teach the bank how to do their jobs. Yay.
Haven’t seen any of the family just yet this morning. Mom is working a shift and gets off at 3 PM. We meet up at The Sisters house thereafter. Grrr. Still in bad mood due to previous paragraph topic. That and I’m starving! I should go scramble some eggs and cook some bacon. Don’t recall ever buying any bacon, however. The roommate doesn’t remember buying bacon, either. Is that worse than signing a gift cheque card? No way to know. If I’m writing my next blog entry from a hospital room, you’ll know what happened.
Yesterday it snowed in Houston. Very weird. Snow by my house was more like silica gel sized hail. Occasionally you’d spot a nice fat snowflake, but for the most part it was hillbilly snowflakes from the get-go. Further south from here a few inches fell. Freaky. Isn’t the equator supposed to prevent that? Hmmm. This happened late in the evening after most shops had closed up for the holiday. I drove the DeLorean around to buy my (now) useless gift cheque cards, as well as hitting the mall and eating some local cuisine. I stopped at the Chipotle near Willowbrook first. Had a burrito bowl with steak, light rice, black beans, super hot sauce, sour cream, and guacamole. Mmm. Drench in the special Tabasco brand Chipotle sauce and I’m happy. Left the DeLorean parked there since the traffic on FM 1960 is hell-bent on being slow and inefficient. Ran to the Sears at the mall. Stopped by Toni & Guy to say hi to my mom and sister. The Sister was having her hair done. Bought some line items off the gift list. Stopped at the petstore to see if this hot girl I know was working there. Nope. Tried to buy some gerbil toys for my niece but decided against it since I wasn’t sure if my niece’s critter wanted to squeeze into a fake plastic TV. Said goodbye to Mom on the way out and walked to Best Buy. Traversing traffic is a new thing for me in Houston. Nothing is close. Sidewalks start and stop. Crosswalk signs are dodgy. It’s like old times. Best Buy sucked. Everything I needed was sold out. Walked across the street (yes, again) to Toys R Us. Bought some niece related goodies. Crossed the street one last time after finding the hidden crosswalk controls that I should have used the last time. Walked back to my car. Still there. Went into Starbucks and bought a coffee. Sat outside in the 30s-ish weather and sipped coffee while no less than 4 different cars stopped and took pictures of the time machine. Three camera phones and one digital camera. The camera phones are outnumbering us. Got in the car and was stared at as I drove away. I’ll bet they were thinking, ”Man, I can’t believe that guy signed the gift cheques!?”’
Let me step backward a day and tell you about the fun I had on Wednesday trying to leave Philadelphia and get into Houston. My 3:40 PM flight was delayed by four hours. First they were ”circling the airport.” Then they were ”just about to land.” Then… they were ”suddenly diverted to JFK after circling and waiting too long to land.” Crap! Four hours later the plane finally arrived. A few knuckleheads who’d been waiting for the 5:00 PM flight managed to get on my flight. I love it when two people start to yell at each other because they both have the same seat # on their tickets. I stood up and asked to see their tickets. ”Here, let me take a quick look… I can usually figure this out.” I quickly spotted the wrong flight # on one knucklehead’s ticket. This guy had taken nearly two minute putting some bag up in the overhead bin while he blocked everyone from getting into the plane. He was *not* happy to learn he was sitting on the wrong flight and had to take his bag out. Still, it took a flight attendant to read the wrong flight # on his ticket to him (again) and kick his ass off the plane. He was convinced this was the right plane. Hmmm. I wonder if he was related to the guy at the bank who thought I should sign my gift cheques?
Yes, I’m bitter, and I’ll keep making cracks about the gift cheques for at least another month. Feel my pain!
