WHY WON'T THIS *&#$%*4(# YEAR END?!?!?

I shouldn't have boasted. I shouldn't have pretended that the year had already ended, therefore ending "that crazy 2005" where all that crap befell our happy home. That was arrogant and I apologize.

And so, in the truest form of 2005, and in the giving spirit of the holiday, during my final burst of holiday shopping on Friday, I lost my credit card. Having no reason to shop or, for all intents and purposes, leave the house for the two days following that fateful shopping trip, and the fact that SPF didn't work on Monday and so treated me to lunch, I didn't find out about my missing credit card until today at 6:00 after a long and arduous day at work where I had already been belittled, patronized to, scoffed, and ultimately disheartened.

I finished filling up my car and ran home to desperately seek the missing plastic and found, instead, the vast emptiness of places that might hold a credit card if, for some unbeknownst reason, it had been removed from my wallet for safe keeping. Upon the lack of discovery, I turned to the internet where my trusty account is monitored and updated daily.

The internet confirmed two things. I had left my card at Target, and someone else had used it. Once. At Target. So I called the store. Maybe I had bought two things and didn't remember. I was definitely in a hurry to leave the store, it being stark raving mad and me being madder, but I was pretty sure that I hadn't. None the less, the mostly helpful staff found my card and told me that they would hold it at the guest services kiosk until my arrival.

Upon my arrival they could not find it. I assured them that I had just called and confirmed its presence within the greater walls of the establishment, but that was somehow not believed. After too long of a wait and the explanation that my name was not Samantha (I am not sure how this misnomer occurred) my card was returned to me.

The kicker? The receipt for the goods that had been purchased with my card not ten minutes after I left it there was lovingly wrapped around the card. So now I know that someone either stupid or strangely torn between guilt and the fact that they are morally challenged bought two game boy games and some cuticle remover with my card before they promptly left it behind for some better, and kinder-minded person to find and turn in.

I know what you are thinking. This isn't that big of a deal. No. I agree. It is only sixty six dollars and twenty one cents that could have been a hundred times worse, especially considering that I didn't find out for almost four days. That isn't the point of this prose. The point? I am stretched really thin and this was but the icing on the cake of a particularly rancid year.

Of course the man at citi bank did not choose to believe me, and seeing as how I have not only the card in my possession, but the receipt for the ill purchased goods, I don't blame him. A sixty six dollar and twenty one cent lesson. I'll take it. But only if it is the Very. Last. One.

At least for 2005.