Losing My Faith in Humanity

Or perhaps I should say "lost", because people can really suck sometimes. Diane called me at work tonight at the tail end of the 5:00 newscast. I told her I'd call her back, wondering what would make her call me when she knew I was in a newscast. When I called her back twenty minutes later, after getting sidetracked by a couple of projects, I found out. "I think I lost my debit card," she confessed. Not good. She used it to buy coffee on her way into work this morning, and when she went to retrieve it sometime this afternoon, she couldn't find it. I told her I'd look into it and hung up. I was upset, but I also knew my getting mad wasn't going to help the situation, so I kept my mouth shut.

I logged on to our banking website to check on recent/pending transactions and found a mysterious one from today for $18.77. No merchant was listed, only an address. I wrote down the address and called Diane back, and she confirmed once again that the only money she spent today was the few dollars for coffee. At least it was Starbucks. I put on my detective hat, the Sherlock Holmes one where you can't figure out which side is the front and which is the back, and did a reverse address search online. The $18.77 had been spent at a Safeway grocery store on the other side of Tucson, a store that neither Diane or I have ever stepped foot in. Great. Then I called the bank and cancelled our debit cards. WTF!!!

Diane doesn't know if she left her card at Starbuck's or if it fell out of her wallet, but that doesn't matter to me. Mistakes happen. I know because I'm the King of them. But what's happened to human freakin' dignity? When did ours become such an opportunistic society, where people think they have the right to take advantage of others' misfortune? Just because I see a debit card lying on the ground doesn't give me free reign to a shopping spree! And it really pisses me off! Right now the damage is only $18.77, but I can guaran-frickin-tee the total will go up tomorrow when merchants have had a day to post their transactions. That's when the real damage will be done. I'm sure we won't be liable for all of it since I canceled the card in a timely manner (I hope), but that's not the point. These jerks will probably get off scot-free, and that pisses me off, too! I could rant on and on, but I'm going to stop here before I break a blood vessel in my head and seize right here on the floor.

I just wish people didn't suck so often.