You never think it’s going to happen to you until it does. It’s something your buddies talk about when it’s just the guys, sitting in a bar, drinking.

Here’s the setup: My birthday present from my wife; me and nine reasonably attractive women. My age, but I’d average them out somewhere in the high 7s, low 8s.  Some real lookers in the lot.

Yeah, it was MBW’s Bunco night on my birthday. Her turn to host. I was the bartender. It’s fun to try and lubricate a room full of MILFs who are tightly-wrapped. Nobody ever gets sloppy or stupid, but not for me trying to push them in that direction.

I’m always available to help represent the missus as an engaged and responsible husband on her Bunco night.

Last minute texts from wife before I leave work yesterday.

Text 1: “We need Rum, Scotch, Red Wine, and Honey Whiskey.”

No, problemo! The liquor store is on my way home.

Text 2: “Also, couldn’t find a fancy dessert at grocery store. Please pick up something nice.”

[Insert sound of Scooby-Doo saying “Whaaaaa?” here]

Fancy dessert. Not from a grocery store. You have one hour. GO!

The fuck? What is this, an Apprentice challenge? Crimeny! Sigh.

Somehow, a lucid plan emerged on the way to the liquor store. We have a weird little boutique pastry shop near the house called “Pastries of Denmark.” They have fancy petit-four kinds of pretty snackerels along with insane cupcakes, cannolis, and fruit-and-crème fresh visual kapows.

I dropped a Benjamin at the liquor store.  Or, you know, the digital equivalent of a Benjamin. I never carry cash. Just the trusty debit card.

I checked my watch. Pastries of Denmark has banker’s hours. I had to push the pedal into the floorboard to get there before they closed. I made the door on a dead run with four minutes to spare.

“Get a big box,” I told the girl. “I’m going to clean out your display case. One of those. Two of those. Two of those. Four of those. Two of those. Are the fruit boats fresh? Okay four of those.”

I could tell she was irritated. She was looking to close up shop and I was slowing her down.

She ran my debit card. “I’ll need a signature on this, please.” She pinched the top of the XON machine paper and waited for it to spit out my debit card receipt she had run as credit.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Just in case I’m part of an international pastry trafficking cartel, come to run a long con to separate you from your fruit boats. This signature will certainly crack the case wide open. Oh, I was inches from a clean getaway and now I’m FOILED by 1930s technology!”

Okay, I was a dick. Signing a receipt for a purchase under $100 is a pet peeve of mine. In the modern history of commercial business, how many receipts have been challenged on a signature analysis? How much does that cost? I don’t know but I’m rather sure it costs more than $100. There’s a FroYo by our house. In the summer the line is backed out onto the sidewalk. Yet the owner insists on slowing down the purchasing transaction by running debit as credit and making everyone sign for a $7 bowl of ice cream. Dumbass. When you see people walk across the parking lot, note the eternal line, and turn around and leave, isn’t that a clue that you’d make more money if you sped the checkout and didn’t require a signature under X amount of dollars?

“Actually,” said the counter girl at PoD, “Your card was just declined.”

“Whaaaaa? I just used it less than ten minutes ago and it was fine.”

I know how much money is supposed to be in the bank. My first thought was, “Holy shit, my wife must have bought me a REALLY nice gift for my birthday! One with keys!”

I paid with a credit card. As soon as I got home I checked the bank balance online. Yup. No problem there. The girl at Pastries of Denmark was full of shit. It wasn’t declined. She made a mistake.

Dingbat!

The missus had a successful Bunco. The drinks were a hit. The fancy-schmancy desserts were a hit. Wife loves husband and pats husband on the head for helping. Husband is glad to back up beautiful wife.  Everything is good.

After the Bunco party shifted in its final gear and the ladies started switching to water to sober up for the drive home, I ducked down in The Scotsman Theater.  As any wise man knows, where hen parties are concerned, there’s a time to be seen and there’s a time to be invisible.  **POOF!**

For some reason, yesterday was finally the day for me to rent Raging Bull. I’ve never seen it. Generally regarded by respected critics as one of the top ten American movies ever, and cinemaphile Shawn had never seen it. Instead I pocketed my ignorance of Raging Bull like a Monopoly card. There are critically acclaimed movies that I honestly never want to see: Schindler’s List. Foxcatcher. Life is Beautiful. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  Whenever somebody says, “Dude, you? You’ve never seen Schindler’s List? You have to see Schindler’s List!” I respond with, “Hey, I’ve never seen Raging Bull, either. I’ll see Schindler’s List after I see Raging Bull.”

Last night was the night.

I dialed it up on Amazon video. I watched half of it. Then a message popped on my screen: “Transaction #4445032-0009. Error. Payment refused by institution. Change payer information in Amazon preferences.”

Again. “Whaaaaaaa?”

My bank has a history of flipping my account dark on suspicious activity that isn’t suspicious. We take a trip to Florida and on Day Five, the bank decides that trying to put gas in the truck is suspicious. I buy an app for the iPhone that routes through a Hong Kong bank and Pffffft! Account frozen.

“What now?” I asked the heavens. “What happened between the liquor store and Pastries of Denmark?” Of course, there was no live human being at the customer services desk to take my call at 11 p.m. This morning I was steaming as I dialed the bank. This twitchy paranoid overreaction shit was going to stop once and for all.

Errrr… Hey. Guess what?  Had I paid a little more attention to my online bank transactions when I checked my balance, I would have noticed a series of transactions of Slovakian airline parts companies putting funds into my account and then taking them back out a minute later. Testing. Probing.

Whoopsie. My debit card had been compromised. Good catch, US Bank. The cybertwats only clipped me for 25 Euros (currently just a little over $25, thanks to the currency crash) and the bank reversed that debit.

You never think it’s going to happen to you.