Two stories

Funny story...

As I mentioned before, Amelia hasn't been feeling well. And when she doesn't feel well, she gets very insecure and clingy. She wants Daddy in the chair in the corner, and Mommy at one end of the couch. If either of us gets up to get a drink, use the bathroom, get stuff done, Amelia will start to cry and fuss, and physically try to force us back to our designated posts. And if you dare to go outside the house, panic sets in.

Now, the good news is that Amelia is feeling much better. We cancelled the CT scan, and she hasn't really cried uncontrollably in several days. And the clinginess is subsiding.... which is good because today was my day to get up early and drive to Cincinnati. I was worried how she'd react when I wasn't there all day.

She did pretty well. But she did need a little help. She dug around in the laundry and found one of my shirts. Then she brought it to Lori and made her put it on. Then she led Lori over to the corner chair and made her sit and cuddle. Throughout the day at various points, she'd sit Lori down and pat her shirt.

When I finally did get home, she let out a squeal and did a little dance.

Needless to say, this is a vast improvement over most of last week.

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Not quite so funny story...

So I told you that on Friday, I discovered that somebody had stolen my debit card number and racked up $1500 in online purchases with it. Luckily, I noticed the same day, and called the bank's security department. They shut off my card. So no debit card for a week or two. But they told me to wait and see if the transactions posted, and if so, that I needed to go to my local branch and fill out some paperwork to reverse the charges.

I went to the bank the next morning. I explained the situation, and pointed out that I had no way to tell if the transactions had posted. They had not. So I was instructed to come back on Monday. I was also told that it could take up to 30 days to get the transactions reversed and the money put back into my account. Thirty days?! What, are they still using punch cards back there?

I asked what I was supposed to do about the inevitable overdraft charges? Try to keep it above zero, they said. Seriously? I can't get the fees reversed? Well, I could, but I have to go to the branch office where the account was opened, they said. I'd had the account for at least ten years, I told her, and had no idea which branch office that was. Oh, they could tell me: It's the on East Main... you know... 25 miles away. So they hadn't discovered telephones yet? Had they realized there were transmission methods beyond pneumatic tubes? Well, maybe the local branch manager could help me call the Main Street office and try to work it out without me having to drive up there.

So yeah, if you live in in or near Ohio, and you want this level of fraud protection and customer service, Fifth Third Bank is where you can get it.

I have some kind of free identity theft protection service that I got from the State of Ohio (because my name was on a laptop that some state employee managed to lose). Yeah, haven't heard anything from them yet. Glad I didn't pay for it.

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Life this last week or so has made me grumpy. I'm glad my kids were all being sweet and cheerful tonight.

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UPDATED: Well, I take back some of my complaints about my bank. Because I caught the problem on the same day, two of the bogus transactions were caught in time, and two more were reversed. Of course it took several days before all this was clear. But at least we got our money back.

And our cow seems to FINALLY be mastitis free, so maybe we're turning the corner. Woohoo!

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