This weekend

It's been one of those get-'er-done weekends.

Friday...Mass, Confession, home...cleaning. Saturday...errands. The decorating bug struck me and so I ran down to Bed Bath and Beyond for my kitchen and bathroom themes. I'm hoping the purchase of these items will goad me into the beginning of painting..finally! I think that if over the next couple pay periods I purchase the needed background items, such as rollers, edgers, etc...the maybe I'll get around to the actual colors and borders I want.

I did my upstairs bathrom in bears. Yup. Bears. Cute, big, mamma bear and her cubs, all in green. Upstairs, therefore, will be green with a bear border if I can find it.

Kitchen / dining will be a combo of "Dinner is Served" and "Pedalling Wine" guys with "wine" accents. My attached townhome dining table has a grape tablecloth, a grape and apple rug, and some southwestern accents because I'm ecclectic and they don't fit anywhere else.

My livingroom is southwestern/mountain lodge ecclecicity, mixed with various Catholic things such as crucifixes, Sacred Heart, L'Innocence, vigil candles, and a Rennaisaince statue of Our Lady flanked by real flowers. And St. Therese of Lisieux with her own corner.

And don't forget about the real dogs hanging out everywhere and as it is shedding season ad infinitum for the Shepherd, then dog-bunnies everywhere and vacuuming every day or whenever I get around to it.

Such is life, but at least with my potpourri burner, it smells like pretty melted wax instead of dog B.O.

And anyway, last night, I went down to pick up my take-out dinner, and I found that I did not have my ATM card. I called the Bed Bath and Beyond at which I went into the red to purchase my household goods, and learned that they had it. Thank God! The woman I spoke with assured me that they waited 48 hours for the owner to claim the cards and then, as a security measure, the company policy is to cut them up.

I assured her I would be there and she assured me she would put a note on the card to notify others that I had called and would pick it up.

Praise God!

So this morning after Mass, I ran home and verified that they were open already. I drove down and the poor cashiers couldn't find the card! They found several others, they checked everywhere and even called the manager with whom I had spoken. She was not available so they left her a message at home.

I prayed to St. Anthony that they would find my ATM card...I was actually beginning to think that someone had given it to someone with a similar name who also didn't realize that my card did not entirely match.

I prayed and I prayed, and finally, the girl said she would check again in the orignal location and pulled literaly everything out of the drawer. I saw notepads, I saw credit cars, ATM cards, etc. Rolls of tape, pens, construction paper, rulers...etc.

Finally, she found a piece of paper wrapped around....my card! It had my name on it and a note that I had called and would be in to pick it up. It hadn't been noticed because it did not look like the other abandoned cards...it had a note on it.

Now, I could comment that cashiers should't be bothered by other cashiers or employees while they finish a transaction as this was what caused my cashier to not hand me my card. I remembered walking out thinking that something was missing.

Or I could admit that I'm the idiot that didn't realize that I had not gotten my card back. I was so excited about my bears and had my head in the clouds dreaming about paint that I didn't realize that my ATM card was not returned with the receipt for the shower curtain.

And I could admit that I was just plain the idiot who didn't realize she was missing her card, period.

Major breach of security. Major. Breach. of . Security.

This morning while they looked, I was reminded of my own likely appearance while I appeared to be incompetant at work, and so I had prayed rather than to give into the temptation to consider the store personnell to be incompetent...although that temptation was strong.

The women there were very apologetic, but clearly very concerned that they had made a HUGE error as a business and lost something HUGE.

At the end, when they found it, they apologized and thanked me for my patience. I wanted to tell them I was not as patient as I appeared, but the relief outweighted all.

After all, I was the idiot who left my card...my finances are NOT their responsibility, they are mine, and that was a near miss.

So, Y'all, I'm not sure how widespread a company is Bed Bath and Beyond" but I will say this; when I was stupid and made an error, they covered it, they protected me by locking up an extremely valuable piece of plastic, and the person I called it in to followed through and put a note on it so that it would not be cut up if I could not get there by the 48 hour mark.

I really need to be more careful, but it's not the store's fault...except for the fact that it's a dangerous place with lots of cool stuff, and as such, and no one should ever go there.