Two Sides to Every Coin

It's not that I'm in a bad mood.  In fact, I feel much more refreshed and positive than I did before the holidays and the week and a half break from work was just what the doctor ordered.  But it's like the universe WANTS me to be in a bad mood.  It keeps sneaking around, knocking over my sandcastles and kicking the sand in my face.  And I say to the universe, STOP IT ASSHOLE or I'm going to tell MOM!

Please allow me to present the evidence.

I've been working diligently to wrap up all of the loose ends from the wedding--selling my dress, changing my name legally and then following up on updating credit cards and the like.  So, I found what looked like a good website to list my dress, filled out the appropriate paperwork, sent in the pictures, and paid the $25 listing fee through PayPal.  Don't you just love PayPal?  Doesn't it make life so much easier? 

It turns out, no, PayPal is actually the devil, and the annoyance being caused by the fallout of that $25 listing fee is completely and entirely their fault and nothing to do with my inattention to detail.

Allow me to rewind a bit further.  Just before Christmas I decided to sell the iPod Touch that I got at my company Christmas party.  I already have an iPhone and an iPod Shuffle and Colby was fine with my old SanDisk MP3 player, so I figured an extra couple hundred dollars would be better in the end than another addition to my growing collection of Apple products.  So, I put it on Ebay, sold it for a tidy sum and then had to add a checking account to PayPal to accept the payment.

The catch is that my primary account is tied up to an old dead PayPal account that I couldn't figure out how to resurrect, so I just created a new one with my new email address many moons ago.  So, when I tried to add that checking account to my current PayPal account it wouldn't accept it and I had to use the account that I use to pay my car note each month.  No problem, right?  They deposited the money and I just moved it into my primary account.

So, back to the dress listing fee... can you see where this is going?  I've never had a checking account attached to this PayPal account before, and I've always just paid for things with my credit card.  So when I paid the listing fee, I just entered the appropriate amount, hit submit, confirmed it and that was it.  Except.  Apparently PayPal now defaults to my checking account.  The one with zero dollars in it right now.  Which means I got charged the $25 and then the additional $29 NSF fee.  Which is all incredibly annoying, because I DO have sufficient funds!  They are just located ELSEWHERE!

And doubly annoying, every single one of my accounts has an overdraft protection set up.  Except.  Not the one that I used to pay the listing fee.  ARGH!  So, essentially I paid over $50 to list my damn dress on one stupid website.  I was considering listing it on a second site for another $25 but now that I've already spent the money on overdraft fees I'm less willing to shell out the cash.

But if you want to buy my dress, know someone who would love to have my dress, or have a dress of your own to sell, go here.  It's a lovely, useful website and I don't blame them for my PayPal misfortune, I blame the universe.

Contrary to the current mischievous attitude of the universe, I had an amazingly easy time changing my name at the Social Security office over the holidays.  I checked, double checked, and triple checked that I had all of the proper paperwork, and after a 30 minute wait was helped by a very nice lady who changed my name within the span of about 5 minutes.  Fabulous!  Since that had been so easy and quick, we decided to take our chances immediately after at the DMV.  Once again, we only had to wait for 30 minutes before my number was called and I went about updating my Louisiana license with my old name to a Washington license with my new name. 

Except.  I love the picture on my Louisiana license.  It's actually a really good picture of me, smiling brightly, my eyes are open and shining, my hair looks kind of lovely.  It's not perfect, but for a DMV photo it looks like a Glamour shot.  So, of course I was let down by my new driver's license photo where my eyes look all squinty, my hair is flat and FAR too long, and my head looks to be approximately the size of a watermelon.  On top of that, I was far from the typical wife-to-be in that I never once practiced signing my new name.  I don't know, maybe it just felt too much like tempting fate.  I only tried signing it a couple of times post-wedding, so now the signature on my license looks like it was written by a monkey on an acid trip.  There aren't enough loops at the end and the letters are spaced out too far in some places or crammed too close together in others.  It's terrible.  If I ever get pulled over again, they'll probably give me a ticket for getting my drivers license under the influence.

Also annoying?  The fact that Colby is gone for the next few weeks, possibly month, and I have to come home to an empty house, with no dinner cooking on the stove and puppies romping playfully around the room.  It is a cold house, the puppies are still crying in their kennels, and dinner consists of chocolatey Special K and an apple or some pickles.  Yum.

But the good news is that he is not currently "Over There", he is in the continental United States at a class he has to attend, and for some reason they can't make that class be HERE.  And so, I am annoyed.

Let me tell you, a big shopping binge would REALLY help my attitude right now.  Stupid resolutions.

Oh my God.  I'm an addict, aren't I?

Comments

[Sassafras]

The same thing happened to me at the DMV - I had never signed my name before and as a result it looks like a 12 year old did it.

And that dress looks amazing on you. SO much better than the model - ewww.

[Miriam]

I don't know if I'd be able to sell my wedding dress. I think I'd be sad :(

Thanks for stopping by and giving me some comment love. :)

[Becky]

Okay, so I'm still stuck on the fact that you have 27" hips -- I'm so jealous. I was larger than that, even in the 8th grade:)

It's always the little things that pile up that are harder to deal with than the real problems, maybe because we just don't see them coming? Plus, it sounds like the Seattle winter is hitting you just about now. If you ever need something to do on weekends with Colby being gone, just let me know...

[Old Warrior]

Don't forget that you have ANOTHER wedding dress here packed in nitrogen.

TODAY ONLY - Big Sale on Wedding Dresses!!!

There are even some great debutante pictures of you in it, if you want to share.

[slynnro]

PayPal is so annoying. It took me, I swear, 50 tries to change my account number. I finally gave up and started a new account.

I'll be curious to hear your wedding dress selling experience. I'm thinking of selling mine.

[sophie]

I got my picture takn for my new work ID on a day I didn't know it was going to happen. I thought it was just "go get a physical" and my hair was in a ponytail so my head also looks like a watermelon with two chins.

I totally think they should give extra "do over" photos for these things. I mean we have to live with the for freaking ever!

I order the Universe to start working on the "Make Angela in an Excellent Mood Project" immediately.

[Bre]

No worries - I'm right there with you thinking how great a shopping trip would go be for you! Guess I'm an enabler!

[Shelley]

Do you know how many times I had to re-read the words "selling my dress". I mean, WHAT?? Did you loose the "Kriger" in you at the DMV? Your not allowed to sell your dress - you are supposed to keep it in your closet for at least......FOREVER. What will you do when your little girl asks about your wedding dress?

I am only half joking, seriously, do you really want to part with your beautiful wedding dress?

[La]

I concur that Paypal is, indeed, the devil. Also? I heart shopping so much that it makes me want to cry. Only because now I can't shop, either, and I can't imagine how long it's going to be before I can buy a new pair of shoes. Sigh...

:)