DECLINED
The cashier gave me a sympathetic look. "Do you want to try your card again?" she asked.
"Sure," I replied. It should work. It was probably just a mistake. The line behind me shifted impatiently.
DECLINED
The cashier didn't know what to do. "Do you want to try your card again?" she repeated. I had a terrible sinking feeling that somehow my account had been frozen or even worse, my parents had made another unauthorized withdrawal to pay for my grandfather's funeral arrangements, in spite of the fact that I had taken away their signing priveleges a couple of years ago.
"No," I replied. "I'm holding up the line. I'll be back later." It wasn't her fault. She put my textbooks off to the side as I left the store. My next stop was the library, where I logged into my bank account and saw that there was more than enough there to cover the cost of the books I wanted.
Technology is a wonderful thing.
I bought my books.
Somehow it took me three hours to get home. I spent some of that time chatting with Nick, who had to tell me all about the conference that he had been at over the weekend. I of course, knew all about it because we had attempted to sneak in to steal their food as part of frosh weekend.
"Damn, you were there and I didn't see you?" he said, "You should have dropped in to talk to me." I probably would have if I had known he was there, but for now he was fully absorbed in the telling of the delicate inner workings of the Conservative Party of Canada. He's such an arrogant sob. Sometimes I just can't stand him.
He paused for a moment to introduce me politely to a friend. She greeted me with a patronizing smile and a weak-wristed handshake. I was filled with an instant dislike for her. She was icky. As we walked away, he surprised me by saying exactly what I was thinking about her. Always a politician. I wonder what he says about me behind my back. It doesn't matter too much. Smile and nod, smile and nod.
By the time I got home I was filled with enough repressed disgust and anger that I had to yell at my mom about how much I hate Family Circus for its good wholesome 50's sexist patriarchal Christian values, even though it had nothing to do with anything I was thinking at the time. It was just a convenient.
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