Banks 1 William 0

Today I was trying to book a plane or train down to Orissa. I had found some really great rates, had booked the flight, and was ready to pay. Easy as pie, right? Wrong.

My debit card was declined. I checked the account balance. Plenty of money to pay for the flight. So I figured there was some issue. I tried my credit card. Declined. My final option was my reserve credit card. That was also declined. At this point I am extremely frustrated. So I log into Skype and I am going to call my bank. My Skype account is empty. I try to use my debit card to top off the Skype balance. Declined. So I attempt to call my bank using my cell phone. Call failed. At this point I am out of options.

So I borrowed Shashi's cell phone and called my bank. Went through all the automated options and finally reached a customer service representative (an Indian lady). I told her my problem and she said she would help me fix it. But before she could she was going to need to ask me a few questions about myself.

Turns out. I don't know me. I discovered that I am merely someone who thinks he is William Purcell. She said that she would be unable to help me because I failed to answer the questions correctly. So with my new identity crisis I hung up the phone and began pondering how I was going to sort things out. Deciding that worrying about it was only paying interest to trouble I resigned myself to trying again tomorrow.

I spent the rest of the day getting everything else I needed ready for my trip down to Orissa.

At around 4pm Shashi came home and we both got into her car and headed out for lunch. The next part of this story would be fairly boring if not for the fact that I am in India.

We went to a Pizza Hut that was located in a mall.

It is here that I confess to all everyone that India is not actually a strange and beautiful land inhabited by a people whose culture is rich and vastly different from our own. The Pizza Hut was located in the food court of the mall. This food court also contained a Subway, a McDonalds, and a KFC. To top things off the mall was filled with teenagers. All the stores you expect to be in a mall were there. I had traveled 13 hours by plane and ended up in Garden State Plaza.

I would go off on a rant about how the world is becoming homogenized, except my brain has stopped functioning.

Came back from the mall and began writing this post. Right now I think the jet lag is finally really catching up with me. I am going to try to take a quick nap before dinner to see if that helps.