Bunch of Bankers

Hurrah! I finally convinced myself to buy the new computer I've been lusting after for the last six months or so. There's not much wrong with the one I have, other than the speed, or lack of it. It's almost four years old* and starting to show its age.

I paid for it with my debit card, which seemed like a great idea. The money is taken straight from the bank account, without any need to worry about interest charges if the bill isn't paid in full on time. What could possibly go wrong? Right?

To celebrate, I took myself all the way across the road for a pint or two of overpriced Irish cider. Living almost directly across the road from the pub is convenient. Sometimes too much so. Today the owners had finally gotten around to repairing the cracked tiles on the steps leading to the front door. Since the main entrance was still closed off, I had to go in through the tradesman's entrance (stop sniggering at the back).

So. Anyway. After one or two pints or overpriced Irish cider, I had run out of actual money, and had to rely on plastic to bail me out. I handed over the card (yup, the same one I had used to pay for the computer) only to have it promptly declined by the fancy machine that takes your card, and calls up your bank to authorise (or not) your transaction. The machine instructed the 'mechant' to phone an authorisation number, which they did, and eventually passed the phone over to me to answer a number of 'security questions'.

Which, fortunately, I managed to answer correctly. Lucky for me that I know my own date of birth and the name of the town where I live. A couple more pints of the overpriced Irish cider and it might have been a different story.

I'm looking forward to getting my new computer. Assuming everything still works considering it's preloaded with Windows Vista...

* Although I've only actually had about two years' use out of it, but that's another story.