Argh!

This morning the girls and I got up late. It took a lot of coaxing, but we did it. Miriam woke up at 3 o’clock this morning and was up until around 5:30. I had barely gotten her to sleep when Rachel woke up. Rachel had wet the bed, so I changed her and brought her into bed with me. I had barely gotten her to sleep when Miriam woke up at around 7 o’clock.

We got out of bed at 9:30. Andrew came online at 10:04.

Andrew: Oh. My. Goodness.

Nancy: What?

Andrew: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

Nancy: No. I don't like conversations that begin this way...

Andrew: I'm officially weirded out.

Nancy: Just weirded out, though? That might be okay.

Andrew: So, since I was robbed, I've been paranoid with all my stuff.
Like locking EVERYTHING up, hiding my wallet under my suitcase in the locker, hiding the key inside my pillow.

Nancy: Oh, dear. Not okay. Please tell me nothing bad happened...

Andrew: I put my wallet inside my locker last night, with €70 in it. I hid it.

Nancy: It's gone? But everything else is there? Please say that everything else is still there!

Andrew: This morning, just the money was gone. Wallet still there. Computer still there. Suitcase still there. Money gone. It makes NO SENSE AT ALL! I even moved to a different locker.

Nancy: This is so frustrating. Good thing you only have one night left.

Andrew: There's no way someone has a second key. They sell brand new locks at the front desk. There was no time when I was awake that I didn't have the wallet with me. It was in the locker all night, locked up. I'm so mad!!

Nancy: Well...I guess we will just write it off as research expenses.
Too bad. And, you know, infuriating.

Andrew: No kidding. It would have been cheaper to stay at a hotel. I have absolutely no idea how this keeps happening.

Nancy: This is only the 2nd time, right?

Andrew: What's worse is that last night on my way home I pulled out €50. Argh!

Nancy: Ugh. I’m sorry.

Andrew: I'm like shaking with anger here. This is horrible. And there's nothing I can do.

Nancy: Go talk to management again and tell them that you LOCKED your locker and someone got in and took your money.

Andrew: I did. They say it's impossible, since I'm the only one that was targeted. Why would the thief go through all the trouble to break into my locker, move my computer out of the way, and take just the cash from the hidden wallet?

Nancy: I don't know.

Andrew: Nobody else has been robbed. It's just me.

Nancy: That hardly makes sense.

Andrew: I know. Management doesn't understand how. Nobody does. Not even me. And now I’m late for the archives. Ugh. I want to come home.

Nancy: I’m sorry. I want you to come home, too.

Andrew: I hate hostels. Man, this sucks.

Nancy: I'm sorry.

Andrew: I have to go now and get MORE money out. And go do research.

Nancy: I’m sorry. How much have you spent? As long as it’s less than or equal to $2000 I won’t freak out.

Andrew: I have no idea. You mean besides the €240 that got stolen?

Nancy: Yeah. That part totally sucks.

Andrew: Anyway, I’ve got to get going.

Nancy: Alright. I love you!

Andrew: I love you, too!

Two minutes later…

Andrew: Oh, crap! Oh crap! Oh, crap!

Nancy: Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!

Andrew: Bank cards gone. Credit card gone.

Nancy: Let’s call and cancel. What are we going to do? How are you going to get any money out?

Andrew: And they’ve already bought train tickets at Termini this morning with bank name.

Nancy: I’ll start calling places, I guess. We’ll just cancel the card and dispute the charges.

Andrew: I know. But this SUCKS!

Nancy: I’ll call right now.

Andrew: Yeah. I need to go find money. Hopefully Egyptian Bank Account works abroad. I have no idea how this happened! I hate this! I’ve got to go.

Nancy: Love you.

Yeah, so, let me point out a few things to you.

1. The number of times I said “I’m sorry.” I even edited out a few of them from the conversation. I’m definitely still Canadian at heart. I’m sorry.
2. We’ve had €240 cash stolen and another €218 taken from our bankcard.
3. We are now in Egypt without any means to access any of our American money, thanks to the European loser who stole our bankcard and credit card this morning and also to whoever phished our information from our other bankcard. Not that there is a whole lot of money to be had in any of those accounts, anyway. But still.

I successfully cancelled our credit card this morning and there weren’t any charges on it, yet, but there are charges on our bankcard and I can’t cancel it or dispute charges until 8 AM EST. That gives the hooligan with our card a good 3.5 hours to play before I can put an end to their fun. Why doesn’t our bank have 24-hour card-cancelling?

Anyway…so I already got the bad mother award for the morning because I’m grumpy from our sequence of not sleeping more than one night in a row (our good sleep cycle ended after a few days) and then getting this news from Andrew and because Rachel decided that when I told her I needed her to be quiet because I was making an important phone call it meant that she should climb up on a chair and emit a droning, high-pitched scream.

I just about snapped.

Okay, so maybe I did snap.

I slammed the phone down (I was still working my way through the stupid menu) and told Rachel she’d better get her booty in her room and stay there…or else.

I must have been pretty convincing because she ran off, scared spitless, and sat down in timeout.

There are a lot of things I could complain about right now—you know how once you get started looking at the negative, complaints just start popping out? It’s like you’ve been repressing them and only pretending to be happy and then the dam breaks and you’re grumpy for the rest of the day—but since I’d rather not because I still have to be a mom all day, I won’t.

Maybe we’ll make cookies. And eat them ALL.