A sick blonde story.

Yesterday, I bought a book for my daughter from Walgreens. Not my normal bookstore, but it was one she'd like and fairly inexpensive, and I was running out of aisles to wander while I waited for my antibiotic prescription to be filled.

When I went to pay, I whipped out my debit card, slid it through the machine, and totally blanked on my pin number. Totally. Blanked. The card is newish, but I assigned the same pin number from a previous debit card, one that I've been comfortable using for about five years now. Completely gone. I could remember the number for a separate card in my wallet, but I knew that it was wrong. Finally my fingers summoned a number and I punched it in.

Denied. The wrong number. Yikes, that's embarassing. I quickly pulled out my other card--the one whose number I did know--paid, and left. In the car I remembered both the correct number, and from where in the depths of my brain I'd pulled the incorrect number. The incorrect number is what I use on certain doors at work that require an access code. Not even money related. I blame the whole incident on the infection for which I was attempting to purchase a cure.

This morning, my husband and I had a date at Schnucks. No, not really. We arrived at the title company way too early for the closing for our mortage refi. Finally. Finally we closed, I mean. Not finally we arrived, since, as I already said, we were early.

The title place was in a strip mall with a grocery store, and I was hungry. Not surprising, given my inability to choke down much over the past day and a half. It took me half an hour of whole-body motion to swallow a single soft taco last night. And my brilliant self thought that a donut sounded good this morning. Not just any donut, but a heavy cakey donut with chocolate icing.

So, hubby and I are in the self-checkout lane attempting to purchase one donut and two cold beverages while I was telling him about my pin-number fiasco at Walgreens. I swiped my card, typed in the (correct) pin number, requested cash back, and kept chatting while the screen blinked "Please Wait". The helpful clerk came over after a minute or so to point out that I'd forgotten to tell the kiosk that I was ready to pay. I guess just swiping your card isn't clue enough.

I finally pushed enough buttons on enough different screens to make the purchase legal. At the prompt "Do you want cash back?" my fingers suddenly swelled to about four times their normal diameter and nudged the wrong button. No, I didn't personally see the swelling, and it was gone as soon as the damage was done, but there is no other explanation. No cash for me.

At least I got my donut. I'm still working on it, btw. 5 hours and I'm close to finishing 1/4 of it. Amazingly, I finished 1/2 of a toasted sub sandwich with bacon with little pain, but chocolate icing is just murder on a raw throat. Who knew.

I think the moral of the story is that you shouldn't go shopping while sick. Or, never let a blonde use a debit card. Or perhaps my card is rebelling against purchasing books and donuts. Or it really didn't care to part with its money.