It’s never good when someone from the bank calls to verify your debit card charges and asks if you booked a flight through Thai Airways.
“Ugh,” I said from behind the two-foot mountain of paperwork in front of me at my desk. “No.”
“What about Sri Lankan Air Line?”
“I wiiiiish,” I moaned, imagining a beach and a Mai Thai and the type of refreshing ocean view that reminds me I am only one insignificant cog in an impossibly expansive universe. I honestly didn’t even know where Sri Lanka was, but just the name sounded so exotic that it made me lusty for the smell of a new bathing suit.
After the bank lady gave me instructions on how to get my money back, I sat in my little office, peering out my window that looks out onto somebody else’s window and considering all this information. And I came to this conclusion: Somebody planned a fucking awesome trip on my dime.
I imagined this criminal excitedly boarding a plane to Thailand and then Sri Lanka a few months from now. But then I realized that the type of person who steals credit card information probably isn’t the type to plan their vacations months in advance the way I do, and that this person was probably already at a pedicure spa in Bangkok, getting the bacteria sucked off his/her feet by a tank full of Garra Rufa fish at that very moment.
(Photo yanked from Fish Pedicure).
And that that could have been me. I literally funded that trip with the hours I have put into my counseling and my paperwork and I could have just as easily sent myself to Asia to place my own damn feet in the Garra Rufa tank.
Having my credit card information stolen always forces me to reexamine my life choices. And by always I mean the only other time this happened, when someone used my info to donate four dollars to a children’s hospital in Australia. And I had to ask myself, when’s the last time I donated four dollars to a children’s hospital in Australia? Or anywhere? Never. The answer was never. I was actually living a more selfish life than my credit card thief.
So really, when you think about it, shouldn’t we all be living our lives a little more like credit card thieves?
What is money, anyway, but an invisible point system used to rank ourselves against other human beings who are otherwise equal—not so different than points in a videogame?
Point taken, credit card thieves. I think we can all benefit from the wisdom you are trying to impart:
Life is short. The world is large. Travel. Donate. Be bold and spontaneous. Don’t hoard all your money away for a future that may never come. YOLO. Go now. The Garra Rufa are waiting.
J-Bo.net 
One of the major banks here in the Philippines prompts you to donate Php 5.00 (no more than $0.50) to UNICEF (or another non-profit organization) every time an ATM transaction is completed. When I have enough to spare, I do this to make up for the times when I vowed to do something selfless.
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What a fabulous idea!
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Indeed, Carrie. Thank you! 🙂
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Indeed, Carrie. Thank you! 🙂
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At least your bank calls you. Mine didn’t noticed when “I” spent $1K at Best Buy despite the fact that I rarely spend more than $40 at a time.
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It’s a good shame you don’t contain a give money butotn! I’d definitely give money for this fantastic webpage! That i suppose for the time being i’ll be satisfied bookmarking together with including an individual’s Feed that will my best Msn balance. That i appearance forward that will recent messages and definitely will share the web site utilizing my best Facebook or twitter team: )
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Uh, I still don’t know how to comment on this thing.
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What thing?
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The blog. My comment is the “anonymous” comment above.
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Love this! It’s really good to be able to reflect like you have after something pretty shitty happening.
Our credit card thieving happened via a music store in California (stereo equipment I think?), but I never stopped to actually think about it in depth – it was more an annoyance than anything!
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I’m with you. I want to spend all our money on travel. Luckily, my husband wants to spend our money on silly things like “food” and “clothes.” Who needs that.
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I hear you!! Travel is the only thing i can justify spending huge amounts of money on. I just bought tickets for our summer vacation, but when my car needed repairs that cost the same amount I decided just to get rid of my car. That’s an extra vacation we could be taking!!
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Ie28099m not sure if I agree with all of this. Then again, your article is very ifiormatnve, and quite a large amount of people will walk away out of this post feeling moreeducated than when that they arrived. Overall, you have done a great job.
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“Life is short. The world is large. Travel. Donate. Be bold and spontaneous. Don’t hoard all your money away for a future that may never come.”
Excellent advice! So where is that credit card of mine? I think Thailand is calling. 🙂
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Thailand is ALWAYS calling.
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“I was actually living a more selfish life than my credit card thief.”
That’s a great line, and a very perceptive shift in attitude.
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Thanks! Certainly a wake-up call 🙂
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Was that your picture on this post?
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No, I found it on Google.
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Most of them stink big time but it’s quite hard to make a good gfrafiti font that looks solid with every word. Funny thing is with most gfrafiti fonts the word gfrafiti itself looks ridiculous. I actually like the Whoa font. It looks quite natural.
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Oh yeah, fauoulbs stuff there you!
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Greetings! I know this is kinda off topic however , I’d fiegurd I’d ask. Would you be interested in trading links or maybe guest authoring a blog article or vice-versa? My blog addresses a lot of the same topics as yours and I feel we could greatly benefit from each other. If you might be interested feel free to send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you! Wonderful blog by the way!
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