Lightning Strikes Twice

Brace yourself for the mother of all rants. Just when I had gotten back my false sense of security, it happened again. Somebody at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, CA, is spending our hard earned money with wild abandon. Somebody is having a very merry one on the Toblers. Several thousand dollars so far at Armani, Gucci, Bloomingdale's, and my personal non-favorite: Footlocker. What a waste. Haute couture is one thing, but high tops and sports paraphanelia?!

So I'm enjoying a satisfying and somewhat nutritional bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats yesterday morning, and I hear Marc holler from upstairs: "Karen, did you spend $1,600 at Bloomingdale's yesterday?" With less than subtle tones of irritation. Urgency. Panic.

Sure. I wish. On a Sunday when Marc was on call and I was sick at home with my kids alone except for the couple of hours I dragged my sorry rear to the church to teach 6 sweet but "special" 4-5 year olds. "Maybe a couple a' hundy at The Target last week combined", I'm thinking to myself. At this point the panic set in and we both knew exactly what had happened. Given how easy it is, we knew it was just a matter of time until we'd be scammed again. We've been on the phone all morning trying to minimize the damage, and have cancelled both our cards. (What will I use tonight for my Target run? A moot point.)

My mom was right again, blast it all to heck. Score: Mom 437 Karen 2. She had warned us that "those debit cards" are maybe not the best idea as a main source of paying for stuff, and that we should be careful.

WHY, in the name of all that is holy and good, does someone else get to shop at Gucci with our money and it's not me? I'm so hot under the collar about this, for obvious reasons. Apprently they actually counterfeited MY card. So when I'm at Chick-Fil-A (for example), and give them my debit card or one of the other 2867 places I use my debit card, some little nitwit copies my number and makes a fake card.

We've been S.U.C.K.A.S. before. Many of you may remember the "Great Break-In of 2004", where I actually found somebody hiding in my boy's (then four years old)closet while unpacking after we got home from vacation. We were living in Temple, Texas at the time, and I opened his closet to hang some stuff up and smelled her nasty cigarette smoke from her clothes and then I saw her feet under the Elmo chair. She had meticulously and ever-so-neatly folded up (in one of MY large Ziplock bags from MY kitchen) all our birth certificates, my passport, our social security cards, all our credit card statements with account #s, PINs, bank statements, etc. Every sensitive document that could've destroyed us financially. More embarrassing details on that episode later.

I don't want to feel like everybody is out to get us, but I've been left with no other choice but to obsess about my neuroses, which, according to Marc, are out of control already. Open to suggestions. Maybe I could use an extra lil' bit of "charity" in my stocking this year, because I ain't feeling any for the perps, and would frankly like to kick them in the nutter-butters if given the opportunity.