Once again it is that time of month in the Furd household. Not that time of month. A different that.
It is time to pay bills. Mrs. Furd collected up all the lastest bills that aren’t paid automatically from our account, and asked me call up the online banking stuff and get it over with.
This is met with much fear and trembling, for I remember the last time. The banking itself is trivial. Before that comes, however, the SEARCH.
I’m not terribly up to date in my banking software, so I can’t use the handy little floppy that has an encryption key issued to me by my bank for my software to use to authenticate me. No, I’m still using the old fashioned transaction list method.
This is the object of the search. This is a document of such tremendous value that it can’t simply be left in a drawer in my desk. Nope. It must be hidden to protect it from some devious thief who might sneak in in the night and steal it from my desk, steal my ATM card from my pants pocket, and read my account password from my sleeping mind and use all of that information to pay their own bills online from our account. That at least is the wisdom spoken from on high - my wife, that is.
The transaction list must be kept hidden, but preferably somewhere close to my desk. The last time around, I searched everything within reach of my desk, and after an hour’s frantic digging I finally discovered it hidden in the pages of my Collins German/English dictionary - a massive tome that no thief would touch. I myself left it for last because I was afraid that the books it was holding back on the shelf would all fall and crush me.
So begins the SEARCH. Where did I put it the last time I used it. Obviously not in the German/English dictionary - you must change hiding places else the theoretical thief who watched you find it the last knows where you always keep it. Besides, that’s the first place I looked, and it wasn’t there.
Hmm. Where is it?
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In the box of the income tax software from last year? Nope.
In the bag with the newly (within the last month or so) purchased copy of the tax software for this year? Not there either.
Tucked into one of my programming language manuals? Nada.
Cleverly filed away with the list of e-mail addresses and account passwords that I keep for a customer? No.
Between the pages in my pack of photo quality glossy inkjet paper? Wrongo.
Did I try to hide it under the lower drawer of my desk? No, and its a good thing too. That’s technically in the desk, and the Goddess of security (Mrs. Furd, again) would surely punish me.
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Where the fuck is it?
The search has gone on for an hour now, and has widened to include parts of the room I wouldn’t normally associate with this kind of thing.
Across the room on the wall unit/bookshelf/TV stand I spy my new American Heritage College Dictionary. What is it doing over there? It ought ot be over here in the book shelf above my desk - right over there, where I seem to remember having placed something after my last online banking session.
There it is. Thoughtfully tucked into the ‘B’ section for ‘Bank.’
Damn. Since when do books that size crawl around the house?
Home banking, here I come.