Forgot one.

I neglected to post the following, which I wrote a couple of days ago.

To follow up what it talks about, I managed to get the Visa machine going after about one day.

I had a couple people come back and buy the stuff they left, but mostly not.

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I tried to close an old merchant services processing I once used -- it was the old fashioned paper and call-in version which I used at places like conventions, and as emergency backup, but which more recently, I have been paying for each month with little or no usage.

Instead, they closed my current machine.

Which scared the bejesus out of me.

The majority of my money comes through cards these days...

I think I have it resolved, and hopefully I'll only miss half a day or so....hopefully.

I think it happened because I wasn't precise:

I handed in the form yesterday, and asked the clerk to give it to woman who had helped me before. "Oh I can fax this in right away!" she said.

"Oh, no hurry."

Unfortunately, I didn't say: "Don't. I want to make sure the right numbers are put in..."

At least in the course of this emergency, I think I may have gotten the right numbers to call, and the right numbers of the current accounts...

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Monday was my run around and get things done day -- which happens really rarely, these days. Most things can by done by phone or online or by surrogates.

But transferring money, closing accounts (see above), talking to the accountant, buying stamps and grocery bags, that kind of thing has to be done in person.

As a result, I let these things pile up until they are almost too late, and then do them all at once.

Anyway, at the end of the running around, I turned to Linda and said, "Wow. That went smoothly and quickly."

I woke up this morning -- really -- and thought, "I shouldn't have said that..."

I'm both really good at these official things and really bad. I'm sloppy, but when things go wrong, I usually can cut to the solution pretty fast.

It helps not to get mad, and to try to get the reps to try to help you with your problem.

But it's also the problems that gets me to avoid most changes of policies, unless the benefits are large and obvious.

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Later: from the material left over under the counter for people who would "come back" and the people who walked away -- I figure I lost 100.00 or so (on my slowest day of the week). If I can't get it up and running tomorrow, this could really run into some bucks.

Meanwhile, I put away comics tonight (Tuesday), and I was missing FEAR ITSELF, the biggest title of the year, the most I've ordered in probably a couple of years. Basically, it's like the biggest movie of the year not showing up at a theater on opening night.

How does this happen?

I'm a bit suspicious that there are people at the warehouse who abscond with these titles -- and the rep will probably have the same suspicions of me -- and with the credit card machine not working, it's the last thing I need.

Once things go off track, they go off track in every direction.

Murphy's Law.