Living Contradictions

BONFIRE OF A 33 VOLUME VANITY

There's no other reason I'm typing this now but for a promise to myself that i would, sometime this summer, blog something.

It will be short, as I’m typing with a cast & that’s not as heroic as i'd imagined it might be; but any little ploy to upset my entitlement to self pity is a good ploy, and worth giving a "go."

The pity's not so much about the cast on my left arm, nor it's right handed mate on the corresponding bone exactly 375 days prior to this (yes, i said that right: two broken wrists a mere year apart.  Either I'm an unmitigated klutz, I've a trip and fall disorder, or, spooky powers from the dark side have conspired to see how easily I can stay COPEless and defeated.  (Pretty sure it's the first. My wise mother knew what she was doing when she signed me up for ballet at twelve. GRACE was not a word ever used to describe little ellie-the-elephant.)

[Wait. Admit it: some of the pity is over the not-too-distant memory of the rehab on last year's wrist, the cast being the easy part. Also easy, watching a trainee at Kaiser's ER jab and grind a needle full of lidocaine into the splintered bone --didn't feel A THING-- so they could pull the break apart and set the bone. All that was kind of amusing… esp the subtle masochistic way she seemed to enjoy it.

But bending, stretching, icing, heat wrapping, massaging, working and manhandling the broken area every day, starting the day the cast comes off?  OH-oh, no no nooo. That's stupefying; excruciating.

Waves of dread are pulsing daily.

So. Allow this short little "promise kept" of a post, to take my mind off a soon coming misery…]

The Primary Self Pity I’m battling is a haunting of thoughts that have been collecting since i burned my journals 3 yrs and 5 months ago, intending never to journal again. [Blog writing is not journaling. Blogs may be read by another soul somewhere, hence they must pretend to be civil. My journals were most uncivil. Hence the bonfire of the vanities as I prepared to leave our home of 25 yrs in search of a new, more civil existence one hour to the north.]

These Thoughts That Haunt really started much further back, on a day in 1988 when i announced to dear hubby that i'd officially succeeded in slowly weaning him off of caffeine.

I handed him his morning cup, except, on that day, it was finally 100% decaffeinated. He looked at me weirdly and said, "well i don't want to be decaffeinated. Here, you drink this. I'll go get some real coffee at McDonald's on my way to work."

Flummoxed. My exalted-health-nut tea drinking aspirations died in a sudden flash.

Been pondering and simmering ever since, asking myself How Many Ways Am I Like That? Knowing the right thing to do, but preferring the wrong instead?

‘Cause, i mean, really, when we're born, do we stare up at the crib mobile, pondering the many ways to become addicted to as many legal substances as possible? No. I don't think so.

Here's the truth of it. I regularly, almost routinely, violate my conscience in one way or another:

- I hate the taste of coffee, but i drink it anyway.

- Red wine puts me to sleep, but i drink it anyway.

- Beer makes me fat, but i drink it anyway.

- Alcohol dulls the HOLY SPIRIT, but the pastors and elders at church drink it, so it must be OK.

- Sugar is poison, but i binge on almond joy bars, layer cakes and cookies anyway

[…recall those six years bridging high school & college when I secretly purged the confections, launching my life long –yet sadly futile- search for a good counselor. Find the story of the Awesome Healing Moment somewhere prior.]

- I am lactose intolerant, but i pour half-n-half in my coffee everyday.

- Profanity makes me an outcast, but i swear anyway.

- TV makes you brain-dead, but I watch online movies, youtube how-to’s and documentaries everyday (proving that getting rid of the actual TV accomplishes little. “Thank you Al Gore, for inventing the internet.")

- Amazon is a porn purveyor, but rather than boycott the bas***ds, we purchase gifts from them all the time.

- I have lists of phone calls to make every week, but i ignore them until it's almost too late… especially the one to the lady who lives in her car down the street but who can't sleep in our spare room anymore because we moved. Come again? Yeah. I told her that her super trashed junky car would probably not be welcome in the new neighborhood, and she doesn’t want to leave it below and walk uphill this far.

- - - Worst of all, I KNOW w/o a doubt that I excel at life when I put prayer & Scripture reading first each day, yet I regularly put it off until 3:30pm or 4:00, or skip it altogether

If my journals were still here, I'd have more of these moral inconsistencies to muddle through. These violations of the spirit, contradictions of body, mind and soul have sapped my self respect.

In Celebrate Recovery, I learned that habitual trespasses have a beautiful name: DENIAL. And now I can appreciate the humor of those funny sharks in Finding Nemo. And I can say I'm clued in on why my prayer sessions just seem to take fOreveR… and why inventing the kneeling prayer pillow was a matter of dire arthritic necessity.

I don't miss the 30 volume set of marbleized, grammar school ruled Arrested Development that were my daily personal rants. It was getting inconvenient finding places where the kids’ nosey friends wouldn't find them. (The kids themselves were welcome to “read them and weep,” but they mostly chose to forego the pleasure. I saved a random one out for the daughter who read them the most.)

But I do wonder ... When will obedience to my conscience become effortless?

(And when will a short little post NOT go on and on for 20 sporadic paragraphs, cast or no cast?!

Probably not very soon.)

In other news,

I sprained my ankle this morning...

RECENT gag gift from a friend who could tell i still needed some daily introspection 

Will The Real Church Of Christ Please Stand Up

Immersed In Culture
Or, Not.

On my dying church that wants to see its Two Hundredth Birthday in 90+/- years (two posts back):

http://www.familylife.com/articles/topics/faith/essentials/growing-in-your-faith/can-faith-survive-in-a-post-christian-culture#.VNE4FoY76rU

FLT To The Rescue Again, and a NO to Q-Var

May There Be Springs In My Desert

Pretty sure it was Nancy Leigh DeMoss whose interview on Family Life Today radio finally started my recovery ball rolling.

It was a typical weekday morning, immersed in my 1.5 hrs of Christian radio tuned to FLT, Focus on the Family, and more recently, My Family Talk, hoping against hope that something might stick to my needy, doubting soul.  I know that actually reading and meditating on scripture every morning is the preferred means by which saved sinners experience sanctification, a discipline others seem to excel at;

but it has never won me much.  Dyslexic? Yes. Floaters in one eye? Big ones. Hard to breath? Asthma makes it hard to sit still, so I like to keep moving.

No, reading is not my strong suit. Tried Bible On Tape, but the readers were Monotone. Or overly eager actors with bad British accents.

So this female speaker-whomever-she-was, Nancy L. DeM or someone else, recounted her discipline of praying daily forgiveness toward her offenders. This took me aback like a rear-ender spawns whiplash.  It produced a shocking thought: there's someone else who gets offended nearly every day, too?

It was relief to my soul to hear that I was not the only one on the planet collecting offenses and feeling miserable about it.  Now, I'm sure she doesn't go around pissing people off the way I seem to, yet, imagine someone godly enough to be invited onto the "Dennis and Bob Show" (FLT-Rainey/Lapine) who yet admits to bitterness and pain from flawed people.

She recounted how she and her husband would kneel together each night, and one by one, confess any bitterness over each offense and --here's the kicker-- release the offender.

Just release them, as in Forgive. And then go on. A one-and-done, systematic and clinical.

- - - - - - - -

Used to praying with my husband most nights, it would be simple enough to try this practice out, but praying THIS deeply would be a challenge. Our prayers had obviously been pretty shallow up to that point.

I tried it a few times, but it became so obvious that I was nursing my wounds rather than releasing them.  Mostly I'd just cry. Good old husband of mine. He just listens and endures my female tendancy to enjoy bitterness.

(It was slightly maddening that, in the years following, he would barely remember my litanies of pain if one came up later. He is too much a genius at forgetting.

Why don't men luxuriate in bitterness? Is resentment a female-only trait?)

It "hit me" last week, the reason why his premarital moral shortcomings were a non-issue with him, while mine have plagued and provoked these long 30 years. He was prayed over by and with his former college pastor and all his brother buddies in the days leading up to our pregnant wedding. They formed a man-circle and held a man-confessional. And never thought about it again. Now there's a one-and-done.

Men.

He sort of forgot that his besmirched girlfriend might benefit from a similar cleansing. Oh, there's another post for yet another, other, other day...

- - - - - - - - -

Back to more recent female choke holds.
Since one particular resentment went deeper than the rest, I made the name of the perpetrator into a computer-desktop password, and each time I'd turn on the computer I'd type it in, praying for her, letter by letter-by-slowly-plunked-out letter.

In a few years, the bile subsided and she was no longer the boogieman.  Galatians 6* began to make sense. It says I create my own destruction by withholding forgiveness. What I sow to my flesh in un-forgiveness, I reap to my flesh in self loathing and constant complaining; all the while making myself into my own version of a demigod, meting out my own justice (bile) rather than leaving it in God's hands where it belongs.

By now, too, my girls were in prayer for me. Adult children are such a boon.

The part that is kind of a stretch is the part where I'm called to replace a snub from a "sister in Christ" with an appropriate, biblically KIND thought.  The Beth Moore Breaking Free Bible Study came in handy here. The daughters went through it about the same time I did.

Apparently, those of us who take snubs to heart are the ones who do not have a grasp of who we are in Christ: we are supposed to see ourselves as his Beloved, His Precious Ones. . .  Those thoughts are more given to those from the Selfie generation. I do not take Selfies. I do not think of myself as God's gift to the world.  Beth Moore would have quite a time with me.

Then there are the "Pastor Blobs" of my fundamentalist past, who have driven jet black opinions deeply downward in indelible ink, their poison ever creeping though the crevasses of my already crumpled, paper thin soul and psyche, tainting me as a . . .

.Jezebel, whore,  non-Christian, unforgivable piece of "...."

I've sought counseling some twenty times.

At last count, we'd spent thousands on introductory $essions with various attempted "therapists," yet n'one was ever good enough to match my TV-brained expectations of professional brilliance:  I wanted a morph of every Hollywood portrayal of Anti-Freudian perfection:  Sybil's Dr. Wilber (Joanne Woodward);  The Kid, Russ Duritz' Dr. Alexander (Dana Ivey); Good Will Hunting's Sean Maguire (Robin Williams!); and Conrad Jarrett's Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch! in Ordinary People).

I've stopped looking.

By God's grace and the gift of a patient husband, I am slowly climbing a forgiveness ladder toward reality.  We still pray together semi-daily. I am trying to oil paint again. We have settled into a church after two years of rest from Sunday Sparring. There are two Celebrate Recovery groups in town. I walk 3 miles 2x/week. . .

. . . And, a most important development,

 I've switched from an asthma med that may have been a major culprit behind my spiraling copelessness these past ten+ years:  If you know anyone using a daily inhaler for their COPD, especially children**, ask them if they're on Q-Var, and if so, to carefully read the RX insert.)

Life ( deep, slightly congested breath) really can be good again. If a little wheezy.


Sad to leave Q-Var behind. It really did the best job.

* my main motivation to forgive is obviously selfish here. I'll master Colossians 3:13 later.

**  A 2013 disclaimer had been added to the insert stating "...anecdotal reports from parents state children using this inhaler have experienced psychotic events such as depression, suicidal ideation and..."

Ow.

I'm on Pro-Air now. And the fog is lifting. Slowly.

How To End A Grand Hundred Year Run

Once upon a long time ago, a man, his wife and their two bebés entered a big, beautiful baptist church after relocating ninety minutes north of their San Diego love nest. The attendees in that sixties vintage sanctuary were warm and welcoming; the teaching was sound; the location too perfect; the parking was easy; an invite to the MOMs group was immediate; the nursery, mostly clean. While unremarkable, the music was sweet sounding, and now and then, a soloist seemed to call down angels.

Best of all, the pastor was not one of those yelling pulpit pounders whose misguided pomposity makes it impossible to invite neighbors and friends.

That little family was us. We loved this church, and imagined our kids' weddings there, and even our funerals, too, so sure were we that we'd found the perfect spiritual ground zero.

So, we stayed, and our family grew by one. We made a few friends, invited the neighbors (who never came), and some in-laws joined us for some baptisms and a dedication; and we half-read our Bibles and tryTryTried to pray everyday so we might growGrowGrOw. Never did become sound evangelists, sorry to say.

But I did learn quickly not to question leadership. A first conflict surfaced over birth control. I opposed it, because it utilizes a back-up abortifacient and creates a mindset that children are inconvenient property rather than gifts from God, but I wanted counsel there, because Hubs wanted no more children. Other conflicts arose over my use of pro-life literature, a wished for voter registration drive (I heard that they finally held one) and a proposed Bible study on political issues. I asked a leader at a dinner party what she thought.  "Controversy? Oh, that is a No-No," she said.  "Such topics are way too dangerous for the pastor to take a stand on."  She didn't think her pastor husband would "go there."

Hmm.

- - - - - - - - -

TO borrow a phrase from the Hatten family, "our years there were marked by where we sat in church each Sunday."  Twenty two years of dotting that big theatre-style sanctuary with our bottoms firmly planted in the worn, squeaky (and somewhat painful) seats passed by, until, by the end of the last decade we had migrated around to that far front section on the far left side.

And there in front of us, nearly always seated two or three rows ahead, would be Chris and Lindsey. Her smile was warm, her loving ways so amazing, her generous spirit always evident, and Chris had a heart to match. They made you certain that God did indeed intersect with this fallen world in tangible, immediate ways... 

...unlike my world, where the intersections had clogged a bit, and I just couldn't figure out why. 

But that's for another day.

Meanwhile, Chris composed, sang and lead worship.

A couple of times we slid a few dollars under their door, or sent something by mail, always anonymously, accompanied by just a little "sweat" over not knowing if the mailman might lose it, or if their dog would accidentally eat it.

In the interim, a few pastors came and went amidst some rumblings as to why; and then all seemed well enough again. One never inquired as to details, as that would be stooping to gossip.

Somewhere in the mix came a 100 Year Anniversary of the big beautiful baptist church, and all seemed airtight and locked in for another good 100 year run.

But that was before the terrible 2000-otts started to disintegrate everyone and everything in a strange and unforeseen way that took our prized little faith nest and tattered it one trial at a time.

Looking back, I now see how, every few years, a tinge of subtle dysfunction seemed to work a little leaven --both mine and theirs-- into the once fresh loaf, until eventually everyone was blindly preferring flat, tasteless melba toast because the fresh loaf had soured.  I want to say it started with the move in the late nineties to remove "Baptist" from the church name and signage: no one batted an eye. Doctrinal compromises crept in, sure, but in refusing to face them, it was mistreatment of the laity that finally brought this church down.


- - - - - - - - - - -
Meanwhile, from my vantage point, I had long before detached from the leadership.

...There was a pastor I like to call Mr. Pottery Barn, who advised my Missions bound middle child to put off her ministry plans in order to pursue a post-graduate degree, and now her huge student debt prevents any thought of her leaving for the missions field; and surely the same man was joking when he said he wouldn't take my son to share Christ at our local café because he didn't like the coffee there... only he wasn't joking. Actually, only one pastor was known to actually practice evangelism. 

This same guy held a High School retreat after which my son announced that his "youth pastor said" to strut around the house in his underwear, sporting his souvenir G-Unit baseball cap, because now it meant 'GodUnit', and I would just have to get over it. 

The last time I saw this Mr. YouthPastor turned AssistantPastorPotteryBarn, he was in a restaurant bar sucking down a frosty beer with this poor church's latest Late-Great Pastor.

...Then, there was the beset Men's-Ministry Leader who seemed so passive, and who answered one phone call in 22 years; 

... and the frownie support staff couple who started a not very baptist brewery and reportedly shredded my Woman At The Well submission to the church newsletter; 

... And I recall a Jr.High overnighter where the kids gorged on candy, ran around 'till the wee hours, maybe slept some, and then went home in the morning with nary a devotional reading, teaching, or prayer, nor anything redeeming that might distinguish the event from a Boys&GirlsClub slumber party; and never mind that our chronically ill child gave away her sleeping bag and slept on the unheated floor with no covers, and was now feeling sick.

...what about the ActorPastor who scowled at me yelling "Get Out! and don't ever ask me again!"when I peeked in the door to cast him in a skit for a worship drama. Man, that really hurt.

... Oh, and that Children's Ministry Director who accused me of stealing classroom scissors, possibly because I walked in on her sneaking the donated Halloween candy she desperately begged us to donate, insisting there wouldn't be enough. I wore so much personal shame over that false accusation (Ex-catholics like me are blinded by the most trifling things, like the horrible sin of not knocking on the workroom door first; or, the possibility that maybe I did walk three miles in my sleep one night, and steal scissors under cover of darkness, and just didn't know it. It could happen, right?).

Worst of all, were the scary looks and cruel digs I'd get from one pastor's wife and her best friend, whose offhand comment about how good looking her husband is just came out of nowhere one day.  

It's fair to say I had become emotionally disoriented. Psychologically bullied. Spiritually stunned.

I avoided all of them in order to preserve what little sanity remained by 2010... I exploded in anger on two occasions, and never had the stamina to explain or apologize. For that, I'd hate me too.

This sounds so petty, sure, because I'm trying to keep it light; but so much more could be penned.  I can recall with pin point precision the three OTHER ornery run-ins that, upon reflection, only belong in the pages of a Stephen King novel. [My job, as one poor in spirit yet desperately in want of recovery, is to render Mr. King's diabolicals into harmless Jan Karon caricatures.]

At one time, unaware of all of this, I had my dear hubster almost persuaded to leave, but then we didn't, though I was way past my expiration date. Then, suddenly, a crisis in our neighborhood that my weakened heart could not handle, and a counselor telling me we should just move.

Now, three years later, we are scratching our heads and wondering who are we?

- - - - - - - - -

Through it all, there were Chris and Lindsey, loving the lost and the lonely, serving in whatever capacity they were asked, and rising above the fray. Even after the elders fired them. The practice of tucking away all the many offenses seemed to be working alright for them!

I have it on good authority that the church is in tatters now, five years on, though Chris and Lindsay are now back, and the place is once again being held together by Chris-and-Lindsey-glue, the only kind that can work in dire times, because its main ingredient is the authentic love of The Saviour who animates them.

And we wonder how it will proceed without addressing the clear need for a declaration of repentance posted prominently on their website:

"We the remnant staff of this OnceUponATime love nest of Ground Zeroness, 

do hereby profess that we are aggrieved by the trespasses of our forebears 

and hereby repent, on their behalf, for all the shenanigans, rudenesses, 

unkindnesses and unforgiveness delivered to a laity who deserved only the 

love of The Risen Christ..." 

and then hold a mass foot washing to help salve and bind the wounds.



And maybe a few more firings, like the pastor who wouldn't release my husband from deacon/administrative duty until after a Focus On The Family counselor intervened; and demote that assistant pastor* and his board of Pottery Barn co-dependents who seemed to think hipsterism and designer office decor are virtues qualifying one for promotion.

----------------
On the positive side,

... at least my son threw away his gangster hat. But wait. Was that before or after he wrapped his truck around a tree after a night out drinking with his renegade Eagle Scouts?  

All that to say, 

Once Upon A Time, we thought a big beautiful baptist church was the answer to our prayers, and that the BSA was a hedge against delinquency.

Oh, Jesus. Why did it take us so long to find out how superficial "big" and "beautiful" are; and how void a denominational tradition is when it lacks the Chris and Lindsey glue that is You. Just Pure You.

I am again a seeker. But where will He be found? At a smallish assembly somewhere with a lay driven counseling department standing by.  They would hear my weak hearted grievances and confessions over an obvious lack of Chris & Lindsey forgiveness.

And, 

maybe this little church will be a place where no child receives gangster hats and Jockey briefs in the name of discipleship training. 

Please.

Galatians 6:8 (YLT) ...because he who is sowing to his own flesh, of the flesh shall reap corruption; and he who is sowing to the Spirit, of the Spirit shall reap life.

* I hear he's been banished to a position in the arctic frost (more less). Cosmic Justice? 

Lies, Lies, Lies

Pastor Blob, Smiling. 
Lifted From A Northern CA Baptist Church Website

Well, true. It most definitely is not charitable to refer to the gentleman above as Mr. Blob.  May I postulate that charity is one sanctification that, for now, remains just beyond my wretched reach?

Doesn't help that my husband joins me in using this jaunty label. Might even be the one who invented it.
I dedicated this blog when first launched to "finally putting Christ at The Bottom." That meant that I would try to come to terms with Truth that is really true, that is TRULY Jesus; and commit to an exploration of how any lesser priority leads to frustration, deception and self-rejection for the Believer; and damnation for the non-believer.

The outworking of that simple goal has been to realize that I've been stewing in lies. A dark and murky swirl of them. They're a blend of self-idolatry and the opinions of others that I allowed to matter more than they should. Thanks to Celebrate Recovery* raw honesty over where our identity should really come from is finally possible.

All recovery programs call that swampy pit by the same name: Denial.

Opening my spiritual eyes to this has been a hard won discovery, but this journey enabled me to see that the 'mere man' pictured above has actually been a guest in my pit. More than a fellow liar, though, he has been the "foundation" of who I considered myself to be. He's been my deafening accuser.

Blob was "at the bottom," and not Christ at all.

I've been sidetracked by this accuser since his misfired ego wagged at me in 1986 and since that woeful evening, I've allowed him to remain a near constant presence. Some misguided voice inside my little head demanded that I endure his accusations; and for some dysfunctional reason I all too obediently obliged, paying heed to his berating belittling most days, into every week and through each year and decade.  When you're raised Catholic, you learn that authority is never questioned.  Leaders are always right.

Someday I'll tell the story of how he became stuck in my craw, a force to be reckoned with for three  insufferable decades, but first, the main point of my discovery:

At the bottom of every pathology, every crazy making habit, 

every mysterious compulsion or misbehavior, 

EVERY WEIRDNESS, 

there is ultimately some lie or lies we've subtly believed, 

either knowingly or unknowingly.

And my lie was this: Pastor Blob is a god, his opinion of me mattered, and forgiveness in Christ does not extend to those who are disgraced by a pastor whose authority loathed your sullied past.

So,

LORD Christ, my Saviour, Redeemer, Deliverer,  I repent of making a mere man into an idol whose tormenting judgement and Dallas Theological Seminary credentials condemned me to three decades of self imposed scorn.

Wherever he is, bless him with the knowledge that his misdeeds no longer curse at least one of his victims.

And may I someday learn that the witnesses who stood there when he let fly his thoughtless remarks did indeed come to my defense and put him in his place.  Something tells me they did, as shortly after that evening, maybe a year or so after we moved away, he was fired and the church simply fizzled. Poof! into the abyss.

OH, how relieved I was to hear the man was no longer a threat to my beloved beachside town.

And how revived I am now to finally feel relief from the relieving.

*founded at Saddleback Church by John Baker   Celebrate Recovery

Sex Talk

Another salute to FAMILYLIFE.COM:

By definition, all marriages are broken, because every human institution suffers under the frail realities of The Fall; and how much more so in the age of the The Madonna/Miley Bra (or lack thereof), Victoria'sSecret assaults, and the Internet porn invasion, where both sexes are lured into the lurid on an hourly, if not minute by minute basis.

But it's finally getting easier to hear sound teaching on sex, to comprehend God's purpose for it, and to implement that understanding into our childrearing and marriages.  Between Focus on The Family (Jim Daley), My Family Talk (James Dobson) and Family Life Today (Dennis Rainey), my favorite is the latter, where I've heard more solid sex teaching in the last 2 years than in the previous two decades put together. Thank you, God, for good old radio talk show hosts who know how to let down their guard and posit good natured, jovial banter in the service of Christ and HIS Body.

Imagine the misery of raising kids in the hellish 60's-70's, before the advent of Bold Christian Radio offered seekers "Help For Today, Hope for Tomorrow..."

Worse yet, imagine my own poor children being raised in 90's by a mom who suffered to grow up in the miserable 60's and 70's. My Poooor Babies!

Never fear, HELP is near.

Look Up FamilyLife.com, and hear today and tomorrow's broadcast boil down the essentials of making peace in bed. . . and in my head.

twitter: @familylife
6/26 The Place of Your Pleasure - Sex and Money with @PaulTripp on FamilyLife Today http://ow.ly/yh2hk 

BARCLAYS SETTLEMENT? SPANK HARDER!

- - OR, HOW I CAME TO BE AN L.A.TIMES BOOSTER

I STILL KEEP THIS 2008 FILE AS A REMINDER TO BEWARE BARCLAYS

OF COURSE my credit card beef with Barclay's was my fault. We should never have accrued an unpaid balance in the first place.  When this beef BLEW back in 2008, I hid the ugly battle from the innocence of children who, at the time, were all living at home and hearing the "debt free" mantra so loudly that our blatant contradiction had to be kept under wraps.  Why did Mr. Man use an Apple Juniper Credit Card to purchase our 2003 iMac? I do not know. For SHAME.

By January of 2008, there was another balance on that card, and minutes before the midnight payment deadline, I was skittering to pay by phone. Their system proved perplexing, as the automated voice at the Barclays end was incomprehensible, but happily, they offered a real person option to complete their electronic check procedure.

THE real person customer service agent was a clever "Michelle." Confident, emphatic, very reassuring. I believed her every word.  I explained that I feared I'd mistakenly entered the routing number of my check rather than my account number, but she assured me the payment had gone through, and that I had nothing to worry about.

Of course, it did not go through. To make matters worse, we did not have the internet at home, so when hubster tried to double check the account from his work Monday morning, their website for some strange reason would not allow access to our statement! He made a payment anyway, just in case, but it didn't matter. A fine was levied. It was a day late.

I PROTESTED. I filed appeals. I made calls and wrote letters.

What I did NOT DO was pay their fine.

I WAS adamant that I owed them nothing beyond my monthly payment and that they owed me an apology for the headache brought on by the Oh-So-Clever Michelle. Nevermind that I was too stupid to know the difference between an account number and a routing number. Such idiocy was unforgivable and they were incalcitrant. Stupid people unfortunate enough to fall into the lair of Michelle do not deserve mercy.

I folded my denied appeal letters into a manilla folder and stuffed it into the banking drawer of the file cabinet, trying not to spit whenever it crossed my path.  Then came a credit check during a 2012 home loan pre-approval process. It revealed that Barclays Bank had downgraded our nearly perfect credit rating due to a "pattern of late payments." Seriously.


L.A. TIMES TO THE RESCUE

THANK YOU Jim Puzzanghera. If not for your June 19, 2012 story detailing the process by which aggrieved bank customers can aire their fraud complaints, I would still be spitting nails when I do my monthly filing. I read his BUSINESS SECTION article, followed directions, and in less than a month,  received something CIVILIZED from Barclays. Barely.  They threw me a small bone, but it was SOMETHING.

Breathe. After four years of queasy spitting, I could finally BREATHE, even though all they agreed to do was reverse their credit ding. I didn't get my $35 back because "their records don't go back that far" and they couldn't prove I wasn't lying. Holy Sheissa. A credit card company's records don't go back four years? Someone tell the IRS.

WELL, Mr. Puzzanghera, if the Courts should find that my aggrieved state deserves a billion or two for pain and suffering out of all those zillion$ in fines flying around between aggrieved plaintiff governments of the western world [ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-10/u-s-energy-regulator-seeks-court-order-on-barclay-fine.html ] and Barclays (and JPMorgan, and Lehman Bros, and...!), I promise to share a few hundred million with you.  Even if you are a demon democrat. Oh crap. I didn't just say that. Oops. Yes I did. [ http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-03/barclays-ceo-quits-after-record-libor-rigging-fine ]

JOURNALISTS rock. Thank you, L.A. Times.

Signed,
A Humbled Republican... who's really more of an independent. Seriously.

EVEN IN DECEMBER 2011 THE BARCLAYS FILE
WAS LAYING AROUND, HAUNTING ME