Living the Dream

So last night I had a dream... maybe nightmare is more accurate.  I dreamed that the kids I and went out to run a few errands.  One of the errands was just to drop something off, so I left my purse in the car.  Apparently, I had not locked the car, because when I got back, my wallet had been pilfered.  I mean, cash, credit cards, and debit cards had all been removed.

To add to the anxiety of this dream nightmare, I was on my way to the dentist and of course knew that I would not make it because cancelling my cards was more important than going to the dentist.  For some reason I didn't have the dentist's phone number, so I also knew I would be charged a no-show fee.  Joy!  Stolen debit card and a no-show fee at the dentist!  What a day right?

This kind of dream hits close to home with me because last month I found out that someone had used my credit card to purchase $100 worth of stuff.  Luckily my credit card company credited me for the charge.  Based on a call to the company who received my credit card information, we know the thief had my credit card number, the secret code on the back, my name and my address.  That's almost everything they need to get a bogus credit card in my name, so I had to contact all the credit agencies to make sure no new credit is issued in my name.  I also filed a complaint with the local police.  I figure not everyone will be as lucky as I was so I'm doing this to help prevent others from being hurt by this person(s).

I have also found that I can be distracted on occasion.  You see, when I was about 12, I left my purse at a McDonalds.  We went back pretty quickly, but when we got there, the cash had been removed from my wallet.  I've also been in such a hurry to get to a meeting that I left my iPad and digital camera on top of the car and drove away.  Luckily I saw them slide down the back of the car and went back and got them before someone ran over them (The iPad had cover damage, but that's it.  The camera doesn't zoom correctly anymore.).

Well, today I had some errands to run, so guess what I did before leaving the house?  I removed all the gift cards and the debit card from my wallet (since I knew I wouldn't need either of them).  Don't think for a second that my dream was the only reason I did this because it's not.  I've actually been thinking about it for a while (see previous 2 paragraphs).  I guess the dream is what convinced me to do it now.  After all, the dream was bad enough.  I don't want to deal with it in reality.

Great news!  I didn't leave my purse anywhere (including on top of my car), nor did anyone try to take my purse from me.  Even if they had, I wouldn't have been too stressed about it because I'd left all the scary-if-they-got-it stuff at home.