Tuesday, August 21

Ik ben Totaal Gestoord

I am a dork. A completely irresponsible girl.

When we first moved to The Netherlands and set up a bank account we did so under my husband's name. The bank in turn issued us a debit card.

A card. As in single. Only one card on the account.

To be honest, this wasn't really a problem. In the first place we were living a student-life schedule which meant that much of our day was spent together. Don was around every morning as well as most evenings so all outings to the grocery store or elsewhere were joint enterprises. Therefore, it certainly never mattered that I wasn't carrying a card of my own. I had a personal money-bags by my side and he doubled as a grocery sack carrier. No big deal.

The second part of this equation is the fact that we were self-financed during that first year, as in there was no income, and the easiest way to stay on budget was to live on a cash only basis. Withdrawing money at the beginning of the week, making it stretch and last to the end was an enjoyable challenge. I got a real kick out of making it to Saturday with a few euros still left in play. There is nothing like the rush of living within your means!

But that was the first year.

The second year of our international experience brought an income, a change in schedule, but alas, no additional debit card. The past 14 months or so have been a continual juggling between Don and I as we swap the single card back and forth, or make quick stops at an ATM, depending on our individual spending needs.

Finally, we decided that we needed to get a second debit card. It would mean the end of our little swap and exchange, but we figured it would be the best plan all around.

Yes, you can say it, we are a little slow on the uptake.

Don and I scheduled an appointment at the bank and then sat through the painfully long process of adding my name to the account (after all, I am soon to be a source of income in this family!) and applying for an additional card.

It arrived in the mail last week.

And finally here is the point of this post:

In the past seven days of my card ownership, I have lost the card three times. By lost I mean misplaced, and by misplaced I mean stuck in strange places. Like the bookshelf, the mantelpiece and the pocket of a pair of pants crumpled up inside the laundry hamper. Only one of these losses caused deep consternation and woe as I stood at the checkout of the grocery store with no means to pay for my already scanned groceries. But seriously, lost three times in seven days? Don't they make places to keep these kinds of things, like perhaps a wallet?

It just goes to show that I am really not the world's most responsible person. Who says that 41 years is in any way the age of an adult?

I suppose it's a good thing I don't have any car keys.

19 comments:

  1. For the past 3 years I have lost the same 3 things, my wallet, my cell phone, and my palm. Then my palm was stolen. And I convinced Doug I needed a smart phone since then I would only have two things to lose. I continue to lose my wallet and my phone.

    I call it Mommy brain.

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  2. Your life is EXTREMLY different from mine.

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  3. You remember when you said we were cyber sisters? Well, I have driven away with my wallet on the hood of my car TWICE. And I regularly find things I have lost (keys, phones, hair clips) in the refrigerator! I don't even want to know what that says about me!

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  4. I like "Gestoord." Sometimes ik ben gestoord, too.

    Glad you found the card -- thrice!

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  5. I know the pain of the lost debit card. I've been there. Way too many times, I've been unusually lucky, like the time I dropped in the Toys 'R Us parking lot and it was still there when I returned to look for it four hours later. How that happens is beyond me. I guess God had his hand on my Visa that day. The last time I lost it, it never came back. I'm still not the same. Hold on to the debit card, my friend. Hold on.

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  6. Freudian slips? Perhaps it's your way of being frugal? LOL.

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  7. HAHAHAHAHA. Oh, poor Jenn. Yes, it's a good thing indeed that you don't have keys.

    I swear, every time I leave the house, i misplace my keys. Even my two year old will start yelling, "where are my keys???" when it's time to head out the door.

    In my defense, though, it's often because one of those crazy monkeys of mine grabbed them and stashed them somewhere.

    Ik ben auch gestoord, it would appear. (Okay, the "auch" is probably wrong--it's German for "also"--I figure it has to be CLOSE though, right? Please?)

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  8. I am about my cellphone as you are about your ATM card. And to make it even more embarrassing, I am partially responsible for the proliferation of cellular networks in the Netherlands. I was a Marketing Manager for mobile phones for 5 years for God's sake! And still I cannot seem to keep from losing my damn phone! If it happens while the battery is still working and the phone is turned on, then I call myself, otherwise I keep hunting.

    Yes, the Mommy brain has us in its insidious grip...!

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  9. Now what do you expect that we respond to that, huh?

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  10. goofball-
    I expect you to respond "yes, Jenn, you are a dork. It's true."

    That would validate my self-assessment!

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  11. My problem is I switch bags all the time and something inevitably doesn't make the transfer.

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  12. yes, Jenn, you are a dork. It's true.

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  13. Thanks Goofball! That's just what I needed to hear. :)

    SMID-
    I could blame it on something like that too, but really this is just about my sheer stupidity.

    fa-
    Who needs a dang cell phone anyway?
    (I never know where mine is either)

    brill-
    Can I blame my losses on your monkeys too? That would make me feel better about myself. Really.

    janice-
    I like that!Good call.

    leslie, whom I call buck-
    I remember your lost debit card story. As a matter of fact as I stood looking stupid at the checkout the other day, I thought of you. That part made me smile. I am sure at that point the cashier thought me completely insane as I went from frustration face, brows knit in fury to grinning mad=dog face thinking HA! It doesn't only happen to me. Buck did this too once!
    Thanks for your empathy.

    jennifer-
    Girl! We are SISTERS. Next time I lose it (and there WILL be a next time) I will look in the fridge first. You never know about me.

    ct-
    HA! What was your first clue?

    jodi-
    I am going to go with Mommy Brain too. That way it makes it sound like I am occupied by other things, not just that my brain is empty!

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  14. I know myself well enough to know that if I put something down somewhere, I will immediately forget what and where. And the depth of the amnesia will be directly proportional to the urgency of finding whatever it is. Because of that, I try to be very precise about putting all those important things like keys and wallet and phone and money and such ONLY in one place. I usually succeed at it, too. Unfortunately, I live with someone who doesn't want to believe that she would ever do something gestoord, so we still have to look for things. And of course, kids just make it that much worse. Last night, looking for a whole purse full of stuff (not mine, don't ask), I found half a bag of cookies under the sofa. No one knew how long they'd been there or how they got there. Hey, I know: it's poltergeists!

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  15. Maybe you really DIDN'T want that second card, lol. I lose things constantly.

    BTW... I locked my keys in the car right before a JOB interview and this was in the days before cell phones, so I had to go back in there and ask to use their phone to call triple A. Nice, huh?

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  16. I tell you, the person who devises a configurable central homing station for all those things we constantly misplace (wallet, keys, ATM card, glasses, phone, thumb drive, and, in my case, important financial documents) could make a fortune. A girl can dream, right?

    Imagine being able to tag whatever is important to you with a permastick decal, scan it with your nifty central homing station, and then when you inevitably misplace something, just press a button and the item will emit a pleasant musical tone until you find it.

    Totaal Gestoord. Now I have a new phrase to describe myself when this happens.

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  17. I have to admit, I canNOT relate to this in that my purse is a permanent attachment to me whenever I'm out and about. It always contains the essentials: wallet (with Debit VISA inside), cell phone, Palm Pilot, camera, and keys. Yes, camera since I never know when a photo op will arise to grab me.

    I rarely use cash - Debit VISA is my friend. But then again, I don't live in a friendly northern European town, either!

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  18. My life cannot be around cells, but it just so happened that I almost lost it the other day. Reading your post was so timely.

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  19. I've lost my debit card a lot too. I think I've had to cancel it twice because of it. One time I never found it - that was a bit bizarre. To this day, I think my dog may have eaten it. ;)

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