#5BDA Unlucky Nevada

It's appropriate that it's Friday the 13th and I'm going to talk about some bad luck that befell me.  A month or two prior there had been one of those big data breaches, the "Heartbleed" I think it was called.  So Comerica Bank decided to "protect" me from a nonexistent threat they would send everyone new cards.  Great idea!  There's just one problem:  what if you're on an epic road trip 2,000 miles away?  Yeah.

Before that I went from Oregon to northern California.  I stopped for the night in this place called Yreka, not to be confused with Eureka.  I got a nice seafood pasta dinner at a local restaurant, which was about the only place open in that area besides McDonald's or something.  Before I left Oregon I used a coupon to rent Transformers 4 from the Redbox and carried it with me to Yreka to watch in my motel.

The next morning I needed somewhere to take it back and found out a couple of miles south of my motel was a bunch of fast food restaurants and a supermarket where I returned the movie.  I went to the Carl's Jr and there was a sign on the speaker saying that you had to say Hello.  They're not really going to make you say that, right?  I literally waited a couple of minutes to the point a car or two was behind me and finally said, "Is anyone there?"  And they were like, "You have to say hello..."  Seriously?  What assholes.  I don't know, maybe they were hoping to record it and "go viral" or some goddamned thing.  What is this, Pee Wee's fucking Playhouse?

I thought I might go through Sacramento or something but the GPS took me on one of its scenic tours through northern California.  There weren't wildfires but thanks to the drought I passed a lot of "lakes" and "creeks" and "rivers" that were almost completely dry.  It was so bad the bathrooms in the rest stops were closed in favor of porta-johns!

It's sad when freaking Nevada has more water.  I stopped that night in Reno, but I didn't do any gambling even though I was staying in a casino motel.  It wasn't a great one like the ones in Vegas.  It was like a normal motel that was next to the casino.  I went out to a Target and it rejected my debit card.  That was when I realized the problem with my bank "protecting" me by sending a new card--to Michigan, 2,000 miles away.  And it hadn't even shown up there!

The problem was more annoying the next day because I had no cash.  And I couldn't get a cash advance with any of my credit cards at the Walmart where I stopped.  You can operate without cash for a lot of things but when you're on the road in the Nevada desert it's nice to have some folding money if you get somewhere that doesn't have them newfangled credit card machines.

When I got to my motel in Elko I literally screamed at some poor sap from Comerica.  All she could do was mail another card--to Michigan.  Brilliant!  Thanks for "protecting" me, bank.  So first there was the tooth and then the stupid bank.  I suppose it was better than killer rednecks like Deliverance or The Hills Have Eyes.  I mean these were more inconveniences than anything.  As they say, it could have been worse.