credit this
You know what? Just because I very, very rarely wear a pair of shoes doesn't mean I don't love them! But that's been Shobhit's argument when wearing a certain pair of shoes of mine, which actually fit his smaller feet. I finally wore them again today though and thanks to his wearing them out in a matter of weeks, they are garbage.
Check out this pair of etnies shoes, which have a very cool black and white print of some city's downtown buildings on them. I am only seeing now based on the time stamp of those photos that I got them at Nordstrom Rack in December 2007 -- literally ten years ago.
There are several reasons I don't wear them often. They are not great for long distance walking, and I walk a lot. Granted, I've been doing mostly biking to and from work the past several months. But also, their design and coloring makes me tend to wear them only with an outfit that I feel works best with them. Like what I am wearing today: white pants and a black turtle neck. The shoes match that very well. Okay, I'm wearing white after Labor Day. As if anyone gives a shit! Also, I decided recently to regard myself as someone who transcends fashion. Why should I be expected to pay any attention to fashion rules or trends?
Anyway! This is the problem with Shobhit. He's wholly incapable of taking care of things. You should see how quickly his iPhones get beat up. He knocks shit over way more often than I do at home. If Shobhit had a brand, it would be "Bull in a China Shop". Nothing he has stays in very good shape for very long. And now I feel vindicated in my discomfort with his sudden discovery and subsequently frequent wearing of these shoes.
He started complaining of small rocks in them recently. I finally wore them myself today, and it was the first time I did so in ages. I took the bus from home to downtown, not taking the bike because I left it in the work garage overnight. (I'll get to that momentarily.) I walked from downtown to the office, taking somewhere between five and ten minutes longer than usual because, and this is not an exaggeration, I had to stop no less than ten times to take a shoe off, shake out pebbles, and put the shoe back on again.
Where the fuck is all this apparent gravel come from? Do I suddenly have Dark Magic shoes or what? It's like the damned shoes suddenly generated little rocks all on their own. I wasn't walking through gravel or anything. I was walking on clear sidewalks.
After shaking the shoes out for the umpteenth time, I think I figured it out. The hard material inside the fabric of the shoes is crumbling, and coming out through a small hole torn in the inside fabric. And why is the hard material inside the shoe crumbling? Partially, I suppose, because the shoes are ten years old -- but also, I am certain, because Shobhit never puts the shoes on in a gentle way. Even this morning they were harder for me to slip on than they ever were before, and I'm sure it's because Shobhit crushed down onto the backs of the shoes when he wore them. And that is making the material inside them crumble apart. Which then comes out the little torn hole and gets under my feet and makes me feel like I'm walking with gravel in my fucking shoes.
And he wonders why I didn't want him to wear them. I can't even replace these shoes. They were on the Nordstrom Rack ten years ago. Someone tell me where I can find some other black and white shoes with cityscapes printed on them! I am going to buy them and then hide them from my husband.
I should give Shobhit a compliment now too though. Because he handled a situation with me last night far better than he ever would have in the past. Like, this is some real personal growth shit.
It turns out I have a third credit card I never knew existed. Now, I do remember filling out the application, which I did at Chicago O'Hare Airport, I'm pretty sure on our way back from our anniversary trip in June 2016. The guy I spoke with said I had to activate the account, and I never did that, making me assume I did not need to do anything more. I have literally never had this credit card in my possession.
I may have had I actually opened mail I received from Citibank. I've been throwing it away without opening it, thinking it was junk. Apparently, "terms and services" -- mentioned to us on the phone by Citibank customer service representatives last night multiple times -- locked me into this when I signed whatever it was I signed last year. This is a card that, it turns out, has a $95 annual fee. The charge came through in July and I never saw it. I've literally never once used this credit card I never realized I had, and I've got a 30-days past-due notice on its annual fee. I actually opened the envelope yesterday almost on a fluke.
I will never throw away junk mail unopened again. On a strictly legal bases, I am still at fault; I should have paid more attention to the fine print on whatever I signed -- which I have only the vaguest memory of now because it was 15 months ago. Still, the guy who lured me at the airport back then clearly misled me. I can't even remember now why the hell I bothered to talk to the guy in the first place. Shobhit was even with me. It's the kind of thing neither of us would usually have any interest in. There must have been something that sounded potentially to our benefit, but I can't for the life of me remember what it might have been. Clearly there was a catch though.
The fact that the Citibank phone tree dropped my calls twice did not help. Seriously, fuck Citibank. I'll never do business of any kind with them for any reason after this. When the call was dropped the first time, I was on hold to be escalated to a supervisor. I was understandably upset when I called back, and that guy was a real dick, dripping with condescension from moment one. And that call got dropped right in the middle of him talking! We tried calling with Shobhit's phone, and he decided it would still be easier to call again with mine since they had record of my number calling them. We kept it on speaker so he could chime in and get them to escalate the call more quickly once we connected with someone again.
They did agree to close my account and credit me something like $70. I'm still left with owing them about fifteen bucks, and I need to call them back directly tomorrow to make that payment and then wash my hands of those fuckers forever. The other thing is that we want to ask them not to allow this late payment to affect my credit score. I looked up my credit report this morning and the late payment still isn't reflected. It probably will be by next month with no action taken.
Honestly, I don't believe this one late payment record will be all that harmful to me in the long run, given my stellar credit and payment history. But, due to this being my mistake, really just to placate Shobhit, I'm going ahead with writing a letter to their Credit Bureau Dispute Unit to request that it not be reflected on my credit report. I've already written up the letter.
And once we were finally done with those many stupid phone calls, and we were finally making dinner, I had to tell Shobhit, "I suppose I should thank you." At first he thought I was thanking him for taking control of the phone calls -- not exactly. It was because, in the past, even by that point he'd still be literally screaming at me for this. How he managed to handle my doing something I already know very well drives him bonkers without flying off the handle this time, I really don't know. What I do know is that it sets a very positive precedent, and proves he's actually capable of keeping his cool when upset. Actually he said he still was screaming -- just in his head. I mean, whatever works. Hopefully he can apply the same calm to future scenarios that are similarly stressful to him.
It probably helped that I stayed calm too. Well, with the one exception of that asshole on the phone.
So what about the rest of last night, then?
Even though I rode my bike to work, I suggested to Shobhit that he pick me up at 4:30 so we could drive and make it to the AMC theatre in the U District for the 4:55 showing of Home Again, the new Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy. I thought it looked all right; I figured Shobhit would enjoy it (he did); that theatre charges only $6 per ticket on Mondays if you present your Orca Card -- a program held over from when the place was still Sundance Cinemas. We'll see how long it lasts. On the upside, Sundance never accepted American Express but AMC Theatres do.
Hmm. That makes me think -- I already have an American Express card, and that Citibank card was also AmEx. Maybe the thought at the time was that maybe I would cancel this one and switch to Citibank? There must have been potential benefits to the other card we thought might be better. But we changed our minds. I never activated the fucking account! But, I also clearly signed something on which I did not read the fine print. I’ll tell you this much: I'll never, ever fill out an application to any other card with so little clarity again. I likely won't apply for another credit card at all again. Once I use the last of the SkyMiles on the American Express I already have, which I had been using for monthly flights to visit Shobhit that no longer happen, I plan to cancel even that, and stick with just the VISA I've had even longer. (I just use that for my monthly Netflix account payment, to keep it active. I otherwise use American Express whenever I can, because I get a SkyMile for every dollar spent. Not that it adds up in any beneficial way anymore.)
Anyway. Shobhit enjoyed the movie. I found it unintentionally creepy and then it won me over. It was a unique movie watching experience.
I might have gotten to writing the review earlier, but we had that bit of a detour for all those calls to the Citibank Fuckers. We had veggie burgers for dinner. Not the best for two reasons: I got suckered into using a 2-for-1 coupon from the Chinook Book to buy a brand I don't usually get, and it is nowhere near as good as my preferred brand, Field Roast (not to mention they only come two patties per box); and we did not have regular hot dog buns and so used sandwich bread slices instead. These do not hold condiments nearly as well, and I was barely able to eat my burger without the nearly soaked-through bread making the whole thing fall completely apart on my plate.
We did the mini crossword and that's all I worked on with him -- I didn't do the regular crossword because then I needed to go and write my review.
The weather has finally become reasonable again. No smoke this week. I'm sure all the wildfires are still raging, but their smoke isn't drifting into Seattle anymore. That spells relief for us, at least.
And the heat -- it's over! It may not technically be fall yet but we can feel it approaching. Yesterday was regarded as the last day of the year likely to exceed 80°. Finally. The high today is expected to be 73° -- three degrees below normal, even! In my world, that qualifies as an exciting development.
I think I may have kind of jumped the gun wearing this black turtleneck, though. The National Weather Service says it's 70° right now, and I just ate my lunch out on the patio. I was rather warm.
I'm really ready for it to be in the fifties at the warmest again, and actually raining again. I'm ready for straight up coat weather.
