Daily Archives: March 18, 2009

Let’s Make this Move Official

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I just went back through and re-imported the entire old blog for what I hope is the last time. Before I did that, I had to delete all the episodes I’d imported before (I’ve made a few spelling corrections in the text, and the links did not reflect the impending redefinition of muddledramblings.com)

As I was deleting all the old stuff, I kept telling myself, “Don’t delete the episode with all the useful user feedback. Don’t delete the episode with all the useful user feedback.” Then Sparta scored a goal, flipping the puck through the five-hole, and Franta was saying, “Džer

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Signatures

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When I got my new credit card, I was admonished to sign the back right away. This strikes me as a fairly silly security measure — I wonder if that signature also somehow cements an agreement between me and the card issuer. But that’s for another day.

So here I was faced with a slick piece of plastic with a very small area to sign. There are no do-overs. If I choose the wrong pen and it doesn’t work out, that’s too bad. The biggest problem is the space available, however.

When I sign my name, the result cannot in any way be interpreted as a collection of letters, let alone one that spells a meaningful word. It is much more akin to the silly symbol Prince chose to represent himself with, except mine’s a mess. Whenever I sign something I start with every intention of maybe making the signature a little more legible this time, but then something in my cerebellum takes over and my hand begins to jerk spasmodically, working it’s way more or less left-to-right, then whipping around to finish with a flourish, a loop that goes all the way back to the beginning of the signature and slashes through it. This is not the sort of signature that fits on the back of a credit card.

What is it that takes over when I’m signing my name and causes me to create this scribble instead? It’s somewhat different when I sign ‘Jerry’ instead of ‘Gerald’, looser and often in two separable parts — with two big flourishes. Now that I think about it, it’s probably the ‘y’ in ‘Jerry’ that has survived enough to provide a break in the progress of the pen. I do seem to like those grand gestures.

Face with my card-signing task I tested pens and did some practice signatures, trying to write small enough. Finally I was ready, had a soft-tip pen with permanent ink, took a breath and started. Easy, easy… jerk. Once more my reptillian signature-writing brain took over, sending the pen out of the white space to get hung up in the numbers. There is no stopping now, though, and the next jerk brought me up into the designated zone again, somewhat off-course but still on the move. Loop! Twist! and at last the grand finale, which swooped the length of the white strip, rising with a bit of a tail on the end, obscuring the secret code number.

Overall, one of my better efforts.

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Solvent!

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Well, here I sit at Bowle & Bowling, listening to the rumble and clatter of the bowling balls, and a feeling of normalcy is starting to come over me. I can pay rent.

Even the last chapter of my adventure was not as straightforward as I had hoped. The credit card people told me, “you can get cash from any bank with a Visa sign on the door.” This, it turns out, is not true. Not at all. Not even close. What she should have said was, “It’s possible there’s a bank in Prague that will advance you cash on your card, but good luck finding it.”

I started my two-day quest in my own neighborhood, at the largest and fanciest bank. As usual in my neighborhood no english was spoken there, but we communicated surprisingly well. “I need money,” I said in Czech. I didn’t know how to say “cash advance” in Czech, and credit cards are so rarely used here that it wouldn’t surprise me if the bank lady didn’t know the word either. “You can’t use the bankomat?” she asked. “No, it’s an emergency card,” I explained. She thought for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t help you. I don’t think any bank can.”

I canvassed the rest of the neighborhood and got the same story. It was getting late so I decided to try another approach. I would call my bank and see if they could issue me a PIN so I could restore all the happy ATM-ness to my card.

Naturally, that turned out to be complicated. Then my Internet connection went down, leaving me Skype-less.

Back on the street again today, an earlier start, knowing that I was going to have to go down to the city center to have any hope of success, and I would probably have to visit a currency exchange. There are plenty of them on Wenceslas square and thereabouts. I wandered up and down the street, window shopping. I noticed that the rates most places advertised were for very large amounts; the normal-human rate was much worse. Luckily (an odd sort of luck, I must say), I will be needing a lot of money, so I found the best rate at a 0% commission place and went on in.

After a little confusion because I said “hundred” instead of “ten” we got the deal squared away. “There will be a commission,” the woman said.

I thought of saying things like, “but your sign says…” but I knew it wouldn’t help, and I knew it would be the same everywhere. No commission on currency exchanges. Credit card: get ready to bend over. If asked they would probably say that they have added expenses and whatnot, and there’s a risk of fraud they have to factor in. In reality, it’s because people getting cash off their credits cards are all desperate schmucks like me. I was tired. I just wanted to be finished with this whole mess. I bent over.

This is officially the last time I think about how much I just spent to get my own money.

Now, no more worries! Now I have money, enough for me to cover rent and some of the expenses of filming, and I have time to find another conduit for the rest. Back on my feet, baby!

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