I was telling my mom on the phone earlier that sometimes I feel like I am Spongebob and my life is the bus to Rock Bottom. I am hardly the ranting type of person, but "scratching my mad place" hasn't been cutting it for me lately. Laughing hasn't, either. It has been pointed out to me multiple times, especially recently, that I internalize everything. I care a lot about a lot of things that I have no control over, and it really impacts my life. A lot. I have known that for a long time, and I'm aware of how inconvenient and worrisome that can sometimes be for the people who associate with me regularly. This article is likely going to read more like a diary entry than anything else, and that is just going to have to be okay in this moment.

I was half an hour late to meet the ladies from the cleaning service at the office where I work because traffic was slammed bumper to bumper. The regular "blah" traffic update came on the radio with its usual list of stalls and fender benders, and it got to my area and hurriedly reported that a man had abandoned his car and jumped from the massive bridge that I cross to go into and past the main part of the city into the Mississippi River. Then the station cut to regular commercials. Immediately, I was saturated with chills. I couldn't get past the thought of that man or his family or how little caution the radio announcer displayed while reporting the incident.

Later on, I was on an errand for work and stopped to put a little bit of gas in my car and grab something to drink. I had just gotten paid the day before, and was going to go back to the office and catch up on my home power and cable bills and have some left over to treat myself to a new pair of tennis shoes. My debit card was declined twice. When I checked my bank balance, my account had been overdrawn via duplicated fake check by hundreds of dollars that I did not have, owe, or authorize. I called the customer care hotline for my bank (which at this moment shall remain nameless *cough cough REGIONS BANK*), and the rep said that they had to do some research on this "encoding error" and get back to me within 5 business days. It was inconvenient, but I told myself I could make it work. Before I left the house the next morning, I checked my banking app to see if the bank had gotten around to refunding me early, and the same bogus amount had been withdrawn from my account a second time, from an amount that was already HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS negative. This time, I went to a branch to speak with a live person to whom I had to point items out on his work computer screen, because he just could not seem to understand what I was saying. After almost an hour of having me there in his chair, he concluded that he too would need to "do some research". I don't always get speechlessly angry, but when I do, I become LIVID. If and when the occasion arises that these funds are returned to me, I am openly welcoming suggestions for a new bank account home. Because, Lord knows, never again.

In other (happier) news, it snowed an entire 2 inches in Georgia last week right after I left from Christmas. My friends from New York and Chicago never truly believed how similar snow is to zombie activity to those of us in the good old Southern states. Darren Knight's Southern Momma video commentary on the subject has been giving me so much life over the past couple of weeks. It's possibly the truest thing I've ever seen.

This video and my leftover Dunkin' Donuts gift card from Christmas 2015 with $4 on it = how I got through today.