Black Friday, Part II

(now, to continue the story...)

Because I didn't really have any other option at this point, and because I still had a mostly-useless check in my hand instead of the money I needed out of said check, I looked at the receipts/cards both places had given me. The one for Walmart had one phone number on it, and the one for Dillon's had another number on it, both for the same Certegy people. Why I had two different numbers was beyond me, but okay. I took the one from Dillon's, which had more information on it, and called.

What followed was several automated menus where they wanted me to either speak or manually enter the check information (for which the robo-voice kept telling me it didn't understand what I said) before I was transferred to a live person -- a lady whose accent was so thick I could barely understand her.

As an aside, Daisy said "I could hear and understand her just fine, but I talk to people with accents all the time for my job."

Anyway. I gave this lady the Reader's Digest version of what had happened, telling her that it was a payroll check from the university, an "advance" check, and that I'd tried to cash it at two different places with the same result -- those places telling me to call her to see what was wrong with it. She took the check's numbers, my driver's license number, the amount, and the places where I'd tried to cash it, and ran it all through the system to verify that yes, it was a real check, yes, I had tried to cash it, and that yes, everything was on-the-level. What she found out, and explained to me, was confusing, but I'll try to sum it up the best I can here.

The Certegy people don't have any information about available funds and/or personal info on anyone, but they operate on a set of metrics, algorithms, and patterns for the types of checks that go through their system for verification. It's a sort of "extra" security measure type of company to ensure that there's no fraud taking place and that nobody's just cut a check to themselves from an otherwise verified account and the like. When I said "patterns" before, I meant it -- if you personally don't have a pattern of cashing checks from the issuer, if the check is larger than most checks from the issuer normally are, if it's the first time you've tried to cash, not deposit, a check from the issuer, or try to cash it at a new place you've never cashed a check before -- it trips those "pattern" flags and Certegy will block it. This basically means you can have every right to the check and the money contained on it, but unless you're simply depositing it into a bank account directly, you just can't do anything about it and can't get your money. It's basically a "for deposit only" check without actually having that written on there. I understand the need for security measures of some sort, yes, but the number of security measures they have and the multiple layers of security measures they have absolutely screws over anyone without easy access to a local bank account for deposit, or those people without a bank account at all.

What this boils down to is that she was able to run all of the numbers I gave her, telling me that yes, the check was verified, yes, the amount and numbers and info on it was all completely correct and it had been issued to me and me only, and yes, that everything in all systems had the green light -- but nowhere would let me cash the check because of their metrics and the fact that I personally did not have a history of cashing these checks or cashing checks from this fund, so no matter what it would still flag me in the system and prevent me from accessing my own money.

What I really wanted to ask around this time was something along the lines of can you just unflag me in the system and turn that shit off for this check so that I can get my fucking money, please? But I didn't. They can't, incidentally -- they don't have a "file" on me in their system or anything like that, and collect no personal information when a check is processed somewhere and it trips their verification systems. They can't change anything; all they can do is give me info on why it wouldn't go through -- they can't make it go through on another try. They just explain why based on the information presented.

"Okay," I said. "So how can I get the money out of this check? Is there somewhere I can cash it or get it processed?"

"You can get it cashed at the issuing bank only," she said, "or deposit it normally into your bank account. Those are the only two options."

I thanked her for her help and hung up.

The issuing bank was Commerce Bank -- somewhat common in the midwest, and with some branches/locations in Wichita, but none in Newton (which, really, wouldn't help me that much anyway as I don't have an account with them).

"They're making me mail this fucking check to you for deposit," I told my mother upon calling her. "It cannot be cashed anywhere except at the issuing bank, and the only other way I can get the money out of it otherwise is to deposit it into an account."

Yes, my mother found this as ridiculous as I did, especially once I explained the situation to her fully, including the whole "no direct deposit option whatsoever" for checks of this type, and the fact that the payroll people specifically told me I could cash it at a grocery store or Walmart. My mother follows the blog, and it's not like I don't email back and forth with her every few days, so she knows the long, absolutely stress-filled battle I've been waging back and forth, back and forth, just to get paid and have any access whatsoever to my money. I've been teaching now for almost a month, was supposed to have been paid not once but twice by this point, and I have $129 to my name that I can't use for anything because it's the only actual money I have to pay bills with, and it's not enough to cover all of them -- and I'm still fighting to get access to my money somehow.

She told me she'd watch for the check and drop it into my account the same day it arrived. It went out in the mail to her on Friday, as by the time all of this was done on Thursday afternoon the mail had already come and gone for the day. At the earliest, it'll probably arrive in West Virginia on Tuesday or Wednesday. That's yet another week I've had/will have to wait after even receiving said check in my hands for me to be able to use it and have access to it. I'd already checked and double-checked everything with my bank, which (apparently) has yet to leap into the 21st century of deposits-by-phone or deposits-by-online-banking. I had no other option but to just mail it and hope for the best. 

Naturally, I was in a bit of a sour mood. I wanted all of this to be over, taken care of, and completely done before the weekend, so that Daisy and I could fully relax and enjoy our Valentine's Day together. I planned to keep about $100 out of the paycheck in cash to use to treat us to a movie and get us our necessary groceries and the like so that she wouldn't have to do anything for us -- after all, she had wired me money twice over the past month so that I could cover the bare minimum of my bills and rent, and she had already brought down groceries and some cooking supplies anyway. I'm so sick of being poor and being unable to do anything not only for myself, but for us, especially when she takes the time and gasoline to come down here to visit for a few days. I do not like being feeble, useless, or feeling like a mooch who needs someone else to support him and survive. I am a very independent person -- I do feel, and have always felt, as if it is a personal failing on my part when/if I can't do or provide what I feel is required from me. While I myself am a very gracious, charitable person, I don't want to be in need of help myself. I don't think anybody does, really, but (as you may know) I have a complex about it, and it's something I struggle with. A lot.

Daisy understands. She knows how stressed out I've been about this, and how hard it is for me to just let someone (even her) do for me. I have my strange habits and quirks. I have my failings as well as my positives. She understands. She knows that a lot of this is out of my hands and out of my control, and doesn't expect me to be able to magically fix it when I can't. She's supportive of me, she's caring and endlessly loving, and more patient with me and my situation than anyone else I've ever known, even to a fault. This is why I'm marrying her, and one of the many reasons I knew she was the one. To put it bluntly, no one else but her has understood, cared, or has ever had patience enough to deal with my shit.

"I'll take care of the movie and dinner tonight," she said, letting me bury my face in her collarbone. "Don't worry about it. Let me do it."

I nodded into her neck. I no longer had the words or the ability to deal with any other setbacks or problems at this point. I just wanted everything troubling me to end, to go away. It was Daisy time. Problems and issues are supposed to stop when she's here. That's how it works. I'm supposed to be able to let it all go and just be with her, and I usually can. My stress and my anger with the whole pay situation had reached critical mass, and while I didn't (and wouldn't) take it out on her, because I'm not the kind of person to deflect things that way, I had nowhere to put it but to let it go as much as possible. Once the check was in the mail to my mother, sealed in its envelope and sent off on its travels cross-country, there's nothing else I could do.

Of course, it also didn't help that I'd barely slept on Wednesday night at all, and had gone to and from campus to teach as well to and from three different stores/places around town trying to cash this check and get groceries for dinner before all of this. I was burnt out. I was a ball of stress and worry. I was exactly what I didn't want to be when she was here.

Once I was able to compose myself and calm myself down a bit (read: let things go as much as possible), we put on our coats and left for the movie theater. Daisy got it all -- the matinee tickets and the popcorn/sodas -- and we went to see The Lego Movie. We went at the right time -- aside from us, there were only five other people in the theater: a family with three kids, sitting about three or four rows down from us.

Go. Go now. Go see The Lego Movie. Seriously. It's fantastic. Best animated film I've seen since Wreck-It Ralph. It's smart, cute, funny, and well-written -- and contains so many great lines/references that to catch them all, you'll have to see it multiple times. I thought I would like it, yes, but I didn't realize I'd like it as much as I did. Is it a kids' movie? Sort of. Not entirely; not anywhere close to entirely. There are many things kids will love, yes, but there are just as many gags and references that only people my age or older will fully "get" and find absolutely hilarious -- especially if you're nerdy. We both really liked it, and have both been singing one of the songs (well, the only song in the movie; I won't spoil it for you) endlessly for the past several days.

Once the movie was over, Daisy wasn't feeling well. She started feeling sick throughout the movie, but was okay until it was over. We'd planned to go home and cook dinner, but she progressively started feeling worse and worse, looking pale and uncomfortable and, well, sickly. She'd still been a bit shaken up over her minor car accident the night before, and attributed how she felt to stress, allergies, stomach issues, and her switching her sleep schedule around to come down here. When we got home, she was feeling so bad that she just wanted to go to bed.

"If I get up later and you want to do dinner, we can," she said. "But I really, really need to lay down right now."

Neither of us were hungry after downing tubs of popcorn, of course -- something that we always tend to forget when we go to the movies.

"I'll probably just come downstairs and join you in a little while and sleep all night," I said, "since I barely slept at all last night."

The movie had been at 4:30, and we were home before 7. She went to bed. I stayed up for a while to let her get comfortable and sleep, especially when she was feeling so bad, and played a game for a bit on the computer. I was beginning to feel really tired myself after a while, so I made a sandwich to put something on my stomach other than popcorn, and by 8PM I couldn't sit up straight in my chair without beginning to doze off. I turned everything off and went downstairs to sleep, taking my DS and mp3 player with me (but not really needing them, as I was passed out in about twenty minutes).

I don't really know what happened next; I know that at some point, Daisy got up and came upstairs again before coming back to bed, as when I got up, she was still in bed with me at 6AM but had used Facebook in the overnight hours. She told me later that she'd gotten up for about three hours because she awakened and couldn't go back to sleep, so she'd watched three episodes of some show on Netflix on her phone and had gotten something to eat before she went back to bed. I got up early, and about two hours later, she got up again.

And that was only the first day of our time together....