there's a FEE for that

i'm pretty fired up right now folks. it all started with an unassuming stop at taco bell this evening. addi asked for "cheese bwito, momma? pweeze??" she's been uber good in casey's absence, so i figured hey, why not. it was less than $5 to feed us all and i pulled out the ol' debit card to foot the bill: denied. 

"try it again," i say with absolute confidence. 

denied. 

"oh, let me run to the atm." i say, but kind taco bell man insists we sit and enjoy our meal and i can come back and pay. yay for nice people. 

so as the little womens are chomping on their pseudo-mexican edibles, i grab the iphone to inspect the situation. the denied debit card situation, that is. i note a mysterious check for a large amount of money that has indeed sent our account into the unmentionable zone: negative. so, "denied" is now explained, and i'm on a hunt for destination of said check. i know i haven't written a check in this amount. i write two checks a month: rent. car. this was neither. 

'check fraud', i immediately thought. it's happened to me before. ruined my credit at the ripe ol' age of 14. of course it's happening again. the beast check fraud is back to smear our good financial name in the year we want to become home owners. curses! in my mind i shook my fist in the air at the fool who thought i wouldn't be watching my finances and thought they could get away with frauding me. never again! shake shake!

so i tromp to the bank with angst on my brow. i stand in line for eons with an antsy toddler and frustrated near-toddler, eagerly awaiting my turn. it arrives. i stride confidently and with i-am-most-definitely-not-overdrawn-by-any-fault-of-my-own attitude exuding from every pore. 

"there's a check on my account. it's not familiar. will you please inform me who the check was made out to? it wouldn't come up online."

a few clickity click clicks of the keyboard later he says, 

"shadow lakes property owners association." 

*swallow*

"thanks. that's all. bye." 

stymied.

thwarted.

mission aborted.

yah. remember that land in texas we didn't buy?? well, we did buy. and in early FEBRUARY we paid our association fees, and now, in mid-to-late MARCH they finally hit. no check fraud. 

in our defense, every week we have an automatic transfer from our checking to our savings. our checking bank and our savings bank are not one and the same, so once the money's gone, it's gone. and it goes every tuesday. when we have unexpected expenses, i.e. association fees, we transfer money from savings back to checking to cover. and we did that IN FEBRUARY. now, 6 weeks later, the money for the association fees had in fact been transferred back to savings and forgotten. my bad, i know. i accept my portion of idiocy in this situation. 

so, now to the nitty gritty part that makes me fume. the check, the unexpected, over-a-month-late check is what put us in the red. now for some reason that is not completely understood by me, they continued to allow little purchases to go through. $1 here. $3 there. a gallon of milk from tamuras. an ice cream from McDs. and of course as a result we now have a FEE here. FEE there. FEE for the gallon of milk at tamuras. FEE for the ice cream from McDs. FEE. FEE. FEE. and every fee was $30. so far we've collected 5 fees and i'm expecting 1 or 2 more before all is said and done; do the math. what IRKS me is that without the fees WE WERE ONLY $10 OVER!!!! what is the logic behing FEEing someone who didn't have the money in there in the first place. "oh, no money? well i just think i'll take some more then. mwah ha ha ha ha!!" stupid saddistic people.

i'm not escaping the fault that is mine. yep, i should have looked at the account at least once this week. i didn't. i was a bit busy having zero ME time. but SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, what are you going to do with the freakin' $150 of FEES you just charged me, eh?? cause you sure as spice aren't investing it anywhere worth while or you would offer more than craptastic interest with your savings accounts, and i would have gotten one DESPITE THE STUPID FEES to have some stinkin overdraft protection.

but, since you find it reasonable to charge me a fee for the milk, ice cream, etc., i think i'll start charging you fees. no ink in the pen (or no pen at all) at the fill-out-your-account-info. counter: fee. the line is longer than 5 minutes while one of the tellers stands there doing nothing behind a sign that says 'window closed': fee. you put a hold on our payroll check for no reason: fee. no sucker for the kids: fee. fee, fee, fee right back at ya poo poo heads.

rant . now . done.