I am not by nature a lazy man. I am not by nature a man inclined to let his life slide out of control, either. However I am a man who simply hates dealing with certain things, namely banking employees at the other end of a phone line. It's just the entire rigmarole of being shuffled from one bored and harrassed school-leaver to another until my simple request is granted. I get round this problem by avoiding it.
Now, I am relatively prudent, I have credit cards, but the sums on them are dealable with (though moderately hefty when totalled up), one of my credit cards dates from my student days, and still bears the scars of a slightly more carefree me, the other is a recent acquisition. I decided to do something adult and sensible, and get a credt card with a low rate to tranfer ruinously high interest rate store cards onto (and I'm boring myself). I steeled myself to the task, completed the necessary forms, made the necessary phone calls through gritted teeth (why the hell did I get a payment protection thing in the first place? I've missed two days off sick in my entire life! What's that cost me? Grr etc) and it was done. Two outstanding balances to deal with. Nice. I felt quite the grown up. The lurking danger being that that's two credit cards still lurking in my wallet, waiting for the day when I simply have to have new trainers and there's no cash extant.
No problem. the new card is chip and PIN, that spectacular collision of protection methods which leads to rapidly accumulating bad-tempered queues at checkouts nationwide. I dutifully memorised the PIN and consumed the paper before setting fire to myself as instructed. Then I forgot the PIN. Card unusable save for repayments, unless I make one of those phone calls I described up-post, which is not going to happen. One down.
Ah, but what about card number two? The trusty warhorse which bought the vast majority of my CD collection? I know the PIN, there's no real excuse. Except it's a replacement card, which won't be activated until I call the bank. The account remains active, I can still make repayments, but I can't use the card. Perfect! Laziness kids, it'll help you in the long run.
In other news my birthday was enormous fun, not that I can remember a great deal, with far more people turning up than I'd envisaged. Huge thanks to all, especially Porl for making the trip. I was equally surprised to see that I had a birthday thread on ILE, which I really wasn't expecting at all. That itself put me in a good mood for most of the day due to it's unexpectedness. I really must thank Archel (how on earth did she know?) for that. Week's highlights have included a trip to the Warehoouse in Preston where, oddly, there was very little drinking but a lot of dancing, haven't done that for a while, and last night's fairly hilarious trip to the pub where a stone cold sober Alex and Sam had to deal with a ferociously battered me and Jim. They were stoical. We were in hysterics.
Oh, and the plot for this year's NaNoWriMo is sorted. So I've done something constructive. Well done me.
Now, I am relatively prudent, I have credit cards, but the sums on them are dealable with (though moderately hefty when totalled up), one of my credit cards dates from my student days, and still bears the scars of a slightly more carefree me, the other is a recent acquisition. I decided to do something adult and sensible, and get a credt card with a low rate to tranfer ruinously high interest rate store cards onto (and I'm boring myself). I steeled myself to the task, completed the necessary forms, made the necessary phone calls through gritted teeth (why the hell did I get a payment protection thing in the first place? I've missed two days off sick in my entire life! What's that cost me? Grr etc) and it was done. Two outstanding balances to deal with. Nice. I felt quite the grown up. The lurking danger being that that's two credit cards still lurking in my wallet, waiting for the day when I simply have to have new trainers and there's no cash extant.
No problem. the new card is chip and PIN, that spectacular collision of protection methods which leads to rapidly accumulating bad-tempered queues at checkouts nationwide. I dutifully memorised the PIN and consumed the paper before setting fire to myself as instructed. Then I forgot the PIN. Card unusable save for repayments, unless I make one of those phone calls I described up-post, which is not going to happen. One down.
Ah, but what about card number two? The trusty warhorse which bought the vast majority of my CD collection? I know the PIN, there's no real excuse. Except it's a replacement card, which won't be activated until I call the bank. The account remains active, I can still make repayments, but I can't use the card. Perfect! Laziness kids, it'll help you in the long run.
In other news my birthday was enormous fun, not that I can remember a great deal, with far more people turning up than I'd envisaged. Huge thanks to all, especially Porl for making the trip. I was equally surprised to see that I had a birthday thread on ILE, which I really wasn't expecting at all. That itself put me in a good mood for most of the day due to it's unexpectedness. I really must thank Archel (how on earth did she know?) for that. Week's highlights have included a trip to the Warehoouse in Preston where, oddly, there was very little drinking but a lot of dancing, haven't done that for a while, and last night's fairly hilarious trip to the pub where a stone cold sober Alex and Sam had to deal with a ferociously battered me and Jim. They were stoical. We were in hysterics.
Oh, and the plot for this year's NaNoWriMo is sorted. So I've done something constructive. Well done me.
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