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At 2:00 in the morning, I decided I wanted to buy some bleach. Maybe it's because I'm an insomniac or maybe I just needed to do last minute Christmas shopping--either way, I found myself heading to the 24-hour Wal-Mart down the street. I tried to make a simple $25 purchase and again my credit card was declined.

I get very embarrassed by few things in life. But believe me: there's nothing worse than having your credit card declined at Wal-Mart. At two in the morning. When the store is filled with no one but crack addicts and recovering crack addicts--customers and employees included.

Furious, I called the credit card company. Once again, I had to endure a barrage of questions just to speak to a live operator. When I found one, I demanded to know why my account was frozen for the second time in 24 hours and third time this week.

"Sir, let me review your recent purchases," she said. "Did you purchase something at Best Buy today?"

"Yes."

"Food4Less?"

"Yes."

"Wal-Mart?"

"Trying to."

"Sir, the problem is those retailers were flagged as suspicious."

Suspicious? Say whatever you want about its business practices, but I'm fairly certain that being a "suspicious" retailer is the least of Wal-Mart's crimes. In addition, flagging two other national merchants has me highly questioning the accuracy of Big Stupid Credit Bank's "security" system. If it doesn't trust large-scale merchants like Best Buy, Food4Less, and Wal-Mart, how am I supposed to purchase much of anything?

I demanded to talk to a supervisor and I really let him have it. I know it wasn't his fault, but he's not gonna tell his supervisor unless I made it perfectly clear that I was hella pissed. It's Christmas time--people make purchases on their credit cards during Christmas time.

My account was frozen twice within 24 hours--three times over the past week. Not to mention the time it deemed my rent to be an irregular purchase. This sorta stuff only happens to me. It's moments like these that have me convinced I'm cursed.

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2006