I’m in the US. My money, however, is not.

I am back in the United States. Not in America, because as it turns out there are quite a few places that are considered America. I went to make a call and I said, “I need to call America.” And the lady said, “You mean the United States?” And I was like, duh, yes, “I need to call the America that thinks they are the only America. Thank you.”

I can’t tell you how much I love airports. I really can’t. I also can’t tell you how long I spent traveling today. I got up at 5 a.m. Central Time, rode in a shuttle for an hour and a half and then got on a series of several flights taking me to a series of several cities, the last of which was my home, at about 11, 1 a.m. Central Time. I heart traveling. One question I have about traveling – Who the hell is buying perfume in the airport? I mean really people. Come on. You can’t be so busy that you are actually purchasing perfume with your US Weekly and crossword puzzles.

Another fun thing that I found out while I was in the airport, once I was again able to check my phone messages…turns out someone in Suur Sojamae (yeah, I don’t know where that is either) has been stealing my money with a counterfeit credit card. Right out of my ATM. 300 bucks at a time. 5 times. Lovely. I didn’t leave much money in my bank account before I left, just in case I lost my ATM card while in Honduras (which I did, cause I’m a mature adult who can be trusted with the responsibility of her own possessions) so with Suur Sojamae withdrawals as well as several checks I sent before I left my bank balance is now negative $1000. Isn’t that awesome? I didn’t even know it could go that far into the negatives. Which is good to know, should I need an extra grand sometime in the future. I can just start writing checks like crazy. I did get a hefty “Continuous Overdraft Level 2 Charge” of $5, which should teach me my lesson.

It’s all quite weird, that I just happened to lose my card just days after the people in BFE started stealing my money. I told the lady on the phone that it must have been the people who found my card in Honduras, and she said, “Uh, no, this has been happening for awhile, long before you left.” Keeping track of your bank balance is overrated, is what I say. But it actually worked out quite well that I lost my card, cause it was useless by that point anyways. Unless I am able to go even farther into the negative balance. I almost want to see how far they’d let me go.

I spent about 40 minutes on hold trying to figure out the whole thing, only to be told I have to call tomorrow instead. Normally this would result in me needing to kill someone, anyone, to relieve my frustration. Today I just shrugged. I think I’m a little relaxed. I wonder how long that will last. We'll see. I do hope that the people in Suur Sojamae are enjoying my money. Perhaps they can send me a magnet or some souvenir of the time my money spent there.

Here is my favorite picture of the trip:


Metaphors abound. But I have gotten up before 7 a.m. every one of the last 10 days, so my brain isn’t exactly functioning on a poetic level right now.

I’ll post more pics later. Cause nothing is better than other people’s travel photos. If my money sends any pics from Suur Sojamae I’ll post those too.