Friday Miscellanea

I stopped at the store on the way home from work tonight to pick up a few quick items. I was preparing to pay for my purchases, reached into my purse – and discovered my American Express card was missing. That card (now missing) and $10 were all the means of payment I had. Normally, if I can’t pay for something with my Amex card I do without that something. So dependent on that little gold piece of plastic am I that I’m not set up with an alternative if it isn’t there, or doesn’t work for some reason.

I was standing at the cash register, (with the extremely annoyed check out person scowling at me), set adrift on uncharted waters, feeling more disoriented with each passing nanosecond, when it dawned on me that I had only one option, I had to leave my purchases. No matter how rapid my mind flailed around I could not come up with any other choice or course of action.

Driving home, frantically trying to remember the last time I used the card, (two days ago at the local Barnes and Nobles), I envisioned some less than scrupulous person having totted up unimaginably large amounts on my American Express card. I imagined my husband being angry that I had managed to (somehow) subject us to this frightful financial exposure. I imagined my son droning on – and – on – and on – over the “whats” and “hows” of my lapse of personal security awareness, and if you knew my son you would know how not
fun that would be.

I got home, called my husband who was still working, and informed of the missing credit card. Much to my surprise, he treated it as if I had told him I had lost my gym bag: “No Big Deal – I’ll have it cancelled and they’ll send a new one straight away”. Well, not quite straight away after all, since there is no Saturday delivery for FedEx in the po-dunk town I live in, I have to be Amex Naked until Monday, which in reality means MONDAY NIGHT when I arrive home from work.

Rarely in life are we left with no options, our lives are generally filled with choices, sometimes too many, one course of action over another, and even the option of not making a decision. When I chose to limit myself to only one means of monetary transfer I narrowed my choices somewhat, and fully accepted those limitations. What I failed to appreciate was my decision, my choice, left me with no alternatives if it was unavailable.

What if I had made my discovery in the midst of an emergency? What if I had to rush one of my dogs to the veterinary emergency surgery? What if I had been stuck on the side of the road and needed a tow? OK, that one isn’t quite fair: I do have AAA, but perhaps you get my point. The choice I had consciously made, with deliberation, eventually, if only temporarily, narrowed many of my short-term choices all the way down to zero.

When we choose to not prepare ourselves and our families to face an emergency, even if one of relatively short duration, we limit our options and choices if/when that emergency happens. Choosing not to at least minimally prepare for an influenza pandemic is no exception. Those who fail to prepare may find themselves with vastly limited or non-existent options.

We live in a society that offers and affords us myriad choices; it’s disorienting and extremely discomfiting to find oneself suddenly without any. I was granted the opportunity to learn this valuable lesson without any consequence to my family or myself. Will those who fail to prepare for an emergency (whatever it might be) be able to say the same thing about no consequences? For some reason I rather doubt it.

SZ <thinking it’s time to break down and get that danged debit card>