Annoying (and Some AxE-murdering Weirdness).

So today we've had a few annoying things happen. Nothing earth-shattering--just out-of-the-ordinary stuff that deserves a blog post (for those of you bored enough to read about it).

First, I've been working through an issue with one of our savings accounts. I got an unidentified deposit in May, and being the good Christian that I am--insert guffawing laughter here--asked the bank to do some research as to where the funds came from. Long story short, some bureaucratic underling at USD made the stupid mistake of looking up my name instead of cross-checking social security numbers, so some student worker missed out on $200 while I--three years from the last time I worked for the South Dakota Board of Directors for SDSU, a completely different school--got magic money. So, she finally asked them where the dough was, they looked, realized they screwed up, and--oh! they needed my written permission to take the money back.

I love how mistakes work.

So today, after conversations and emails with the bank, I called the USD Human Resources chick, then emailed her and the bank what they wanted, and Papa and I decided to close the account and open another one just so the SDBOD can never, ever make this mistake again. They can't delete my info--my precious, identity-stealable-info--due to "record retention regulations" (how's that for alliteration?), and they can only "put a block on my profile," so we figured this was the next best protection we could take. So... somebody in government makes a mistake and someone else spends probably three hours fixing it? At a full-time government salary with benefits, how much did that $200 mistake really cost? And that doesn't count the bank worker time or my time being all altruistic and honest. I mean, don't I at least deserve a medal or something for being so cooperative?

Ha. Hahahahahahaha.

Second, Papa can't find his wallet. This happens fairly frequently, but he looked for an hour and still can't find it. Update: he found it at church. Under some papers. After going and looking there twice, in between telling me how annoying it was that he couldn't find his wallet, thus couldn't go get some stuff, thus couldn't mow the grass... well, he's mowing the grass now, and all's well that ends well. Especially if you end with your wallet in your pocket.

Third, I got a text this afternoon from someone telling me how they're probably going to sign soon on a house and be homeowners again by August 19, and thanx for all my support!!! Um, no problem. Because I was sitting at my computer while I told Papa about this, I decided to do a reverse phone lookup, even though I figured the message came from a cell phone. It did, but the free service identified the town where the number (or the owners of the phone?) came from was Villisca, Iowa.

So I did what any God-fearing American would do and googled Villisca, expecting a map to pop up first--and I got the website for the Villisca Ax Murder House. Um, yeah. In 1912, in said house, the Moore family (two parents, four kids) and two other kids were brutally slaughtered (I'd say "axe murdered," but that's pretty self-evident, and then it brings up the whole debate as to whether ax should be spelled with an "e" or without. The "e"s seem to win it, but maybe those folks who run the House get dibs on correctness). No one ever solved the mystery, strange things take place on the property... and the house looks like the major tourist destination for central Iowa. Talk about information I did not expect to learn today.

I was hoping this guest would be wearing the "Where Skeptics Become Believers" shirt, but no luck. I like the overalls, though.

On the bright side, the temperature dropped back into the mid-80s and, most excitingly, our living room furniture was delivered this morning! Post soon about that non-annoying, non-weird stuff.