in which our heroine tells the story of the latest drama.

this is what happened between 4:00 p.m. Thursday and 10:00 a.m. Friday, and a little bit after.

after a late end to my workday, I stopped at the store and got a frozen pizza for dinner and picked up my mail on the way in. I got home and found my electricity was out. I knew it was just my power because the place next door had their lights on and the parking lots lights were already on, because it was grey and rainy outside. once I got settled, I opened up the door to my deck, so I could have some light, and I called the power company to find out what was going on. the outage was due to a service interruption, caused by non-payment. I could have sworn I paid it last month, but apparently the payment I was thinking of was from October. the phone rep gave me the amount I'd have to pay to have service restored, and I panicked. it was a number just shy of my current bank balance, so I told the rep I would have to check my account and call back to make the payment. I called the back and confirmed that the amount in my checking account was roughly ten dollars more than the amount due to the power company. I called the power company back and paid the bill, then asked when service would be restored. they told me that, when disconnects are resolved by 3:00 p.m., they are restored the same day, but if it is after that, the service time was within twenty-four hours.

so I was without electricity for the rest of the day, and I could not make the pizza I'd just bought.

while on the phone, I remembered I had a strange letter in the mail. I went and looked at it. it was from the city of Sunnyvale, otherwise known as the town Adam and I lived in when we had the house together. It was a very very very past due bill for a couple hundred dollars for the water/sewer service. I don't know when, or how, the hell I'll pay for that. but, since all the house bills were in my name, it's my credit that it's screwing up.

after I got off the phone with the power company, I noticed that the battery for my cell phone was dying. I was using my cell phone since my home phone works off Vonage. no power, no cable, no phone. I don't own a car charger for my phone.

so, for those keeping track at home, I wouldn't have power until sometime Friday, which means no alarm clock. my cell phone was dying, which means I couldn't use its alarm. both phones being down means I couldn't ask someone to call and wake me up. I even tried my previous cell phone, but its battery was dead too.

I sent my manager a text message saying I had no power and would soon have no phone, so if I was late to work the next day and no one could reach me, that was why. she replied saying okay.

I spent Thursday night reading by candlelight (because I never remember to buy a flashlight) and eating Doritos for dinner.

and...well, normally my internal alarm clock is very good, within five minutes either way of the time I need to get up. but this time, it failed me. once I opened my eyes and saw sun streaming through the blinds, I thought "I don't know what time it is, but this can't be good". the clock in my car, when I got in it fifteen minutes later. let me know that it was 9:15 a.m. I sped to work, and work turned out to be very chaotic. many people were out and we were busy.

I brought up my yahoo email to go through all the messages I could not get to for the previous twenty hours. one of the emails was a balance notification from my bank. I clicked on it, wondering if the leasing office had deposited my rent check yet. the number it showed me was an overdraft of over three hundred dollars. I think I actually did a double-take. I had just deposited my paycheck two days beforehand and hadn't bought anything since; how could I be overdrawn?

well. said bank is the bank that houses the checking account that is connected to the debit card number that was stolen last month. when I last talked to them, the charges had all been credited back and I thought that was the end of it.

apparently not.

I was supposed to hear from the fraud people. I never heard from the fraud people. on Wednesday, unbeknownst to me, as a result of no contact with the fraud people, they started taking BACK the credits they issued for the fraudulent charges. so since that happened, the money for my rent check was no longer there, and that means my rent check bounced.

at this point I was sitting at my desk having a freaking panic attack and wishing that life would stop hurling fiery boulders at me. I rushed to the warehouse with my cell phone (having charged it some at my desk after bringing my home charger in with me, since I still did not have power in the morning) and called the bank's customer service, who sent me to the right place...or so I thought. someone from customer support picked up the call. I explained where I was trying to get to, and she transferred me into phone tree hell. after getting to the right place, my call was disconnected while holding for a rep. and since we were so busy at work, I simply didn't have the time to deal with it. so I did what Morgan does: internalized it and moved on, so I could get through my day.

from the minute I got home Friday, I resolved that I would refuse to deal with it at all for the weekend and would start up again Monday morning. I lost myself in Warcraft the whole weekend because I needed something to occupy my mind and disperse the stress from the previous week. I thought about things only fleetingly throughout the time off, but I didn't get worked up about it (with a brief exception when Adam called Saturday night and I told him the whole story).

I called the fraud department directly this morning (since I had the number at home, I put it into my phone before I left). they said they sent paperwork for me to sign, which I had never received. they faxed it to me at work and I signed it and sent it back. I *hope* this is finally the end of the fraud stuff. after I'm absolutely sure, I'm going to close my bank account. the way they've handled this situation is terrible, and I don't want to keep my money there anymore.

I have not yet talked to the leasing office. I'm freaking out just thinking about it, because I know I'm going to have to pay them an outrageous bounced-check fee, despite this not being my fault. and, since I now have about thirteen bucks to my name, it's not like I can give them the money right now. I know I have to deal with it, but I just can't handle it at the moment.