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2007-01-15 - 10:52 p.m.

Killin' Time

Yesterday I didn't do much but sleep and watch TV, until 8 pm rolled around, at which time I had to call in for a board meeting (non-profit horse rescue organization I'm involved with). We used to have conference calls every month or so, but lately they've been scattered hither and thither. Two and half hours later, the call ended, and after completing some pre-nite-nite activities (filling of the water bottle, nibbing of the snacks, brushing of the teefies), I snorgled up in bed with the dogs.

Last night was different though, because I set my alarm, for the first time in over 2 weeks. I needed to be up by 9 so I could call the bank first thing and find out what was up with my fat deposit from Wednesday. They told me they would free up a sizable chunk for immediate use, and hold the rest for "verification" until Monday. But when I checked my bank balance online on Saturday, they were still holding everything on that deposit but $100.

WHAT? No, no, no, you fuckers! I should've had several thousand in my available balance column. I'd sent out several checks on Friday thinking that the money was there for my use. One of which was a check to the farm to cover my COBRA health & dental insurance payment for January. I was feeling nervous enough that I waited till Friday to send the check that was due on Monday (even though it should've only taken a day to get there), because knowing how pissed Lumbergh acted last week via email, it wouldn't take much for him to decide to cut off my continuation insurance if the payment was one day late. But if that check bounced? OH CHRIST. Not good.

Fortunately, I have a bit in savings which would cover an overdraft, but still, playing it that close, when I just put in a shitload of moolah? The bank has some 'splaining to do.

So I woke up around 7:30 this morning to walk the dogs, then turned off my alarm and decided to stay up, call the bank at 9 (and go in to speak to someone in person, if needed), then go back to sleep or putter around or whatever.

I called the bank at 8:57, just in case someone was in early for the drive-thru or whatnot. No answer. Not even a recording.

I called at 9:02. No answer.

I called at 9:04. No answer. I grabbed the phone book to double-check the number I had on a business card. Yep. It's right.

I called at 9:06. No answer. I jumped online and double-checked the number and their hours on their website. Yep, number's right. And while the lobby didn't open till 9, the drive-thru opened at 8, so why is no one answering?

At the moment I was going to hit redial again, I suddenly thought of the date. January 15th...January 15th...is that a special day or something? Ohhhhh. Wait a fucking minute. It's MLK day isn't it? I grabbed a calendar.

Yeppers. Dammit. I'd had myself worked up into a little frenzy since Saturday about calling the bank first thing on Monday to get this all sorted out, but in bankworld, it was Sunday morning all over again. Grrrr.

Plus, there'd be no mail today.

I was hoping for a new Netflix movie, or a magazine. Double grrrr. And if my insurance payment didn't get to the farm in Saturday's mail, it would arrive one day late on Tuesday. Technically no fault of my own (like that even matters to Lumbergh), so triple grrrrr.

On the other hand, moolah-wise, things were the same as they were. Suspended in time, like Olivia Newton-John and Michael Beck in Xanadu.

So now tomorrow I have to get up by 9 (DEAR GOD!) and go through the whole riggamarole of dialing the bank again (OH, THE AGONY!). Which means, of course, I'll wind up sleeping in till 11 (honk-shu, honk-shu).

In other news, today in between bouts of cleaning and organizing, I watched "Corwin's Quest" on Animal Planet (I heart Jeff Corwin. So cute, so funny, so smart. He's getting a bit more invasive/distruptive with the animals though, a la Irwin, so that bothered me somewhat), then I watched "Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe" (he's soooo cute and rugged-ish) on the Discovery Channel. I haven't watched that show in awhile, so it was fun to see again.

On one episode, Mike worked at an insect conservation and breeding facility in New Orleans. One of the employees was telling him about the leaf cutter ants, and showing Mike how they'd fashioned a series of tubes and containers for the ants to move around in. One of the containers away from the main complex was the "dump" where the ants moved all the feces, urine and corpses, to keep the toxic waste away from the colony.

The employees would clean out the container on a regular basis for health purposes of the colony, leaving only a small chunk behind for the ants to track the scent.

As Mike got ready to get dirty, and clean out the container, the employee mentioned that there would be some ants working in the dump, and they had to be picked out and set aside.

"So who gets this lowly job in an ant colony?" Mike queried.

"The old ants. They're near the end of their life," the employee remarked.

"There's no retirement home or golden years for leaf cutter ants then?"

"Nope."

I laughed my ass off. Can you imagine if we sent our senior citizens to work in dumps and morgues and sewers because 1) ewww, it's nasty, 2) we're busy building and procreating, 3) they're almost dead anyway?

Hell, why didn't WE think of that?

Not that senior citizens get the best treatment in our society, but fuck, at least we don't put them on a garbage barge in New Jersey until they keel over face first into a bag of diapers.

Although, handing out carts at Wal-Mart and smiling at ugly trailer babies has GOT to be a close second.