So I was talking to someone at Purlescence tonight who used to work for a major bank, and she told me that every time they did an upgrade, a few accounts somewhere got totally messed over.

That made me feel better because at least it made sense. Not that it happens at all, but that it had clearly happened to us.

Ours did a major upgrade just yesterday, as it turns out; I found that out when I tried to log in today, tried again, tried again, got a Contact Us message only, and finally gave up and called the number.

I got told the unbelievably-bad-PR line that I had to have my husband vouch for me, either on the phone or in person, that I had his permission to use our joint account.

Wait, *what!?*

I said we had had that account for 15 years, not to mention it was a community property state. Besides, all I wanted to do–but that I really really wanted to do for now–was to transfer my son his college tuition money.

The woman on the line took care of that for me but told me I needed to come in in person with proof of my social security number: the one I was giving her was not accepted.

They’d clearly assigned me a random string of numbers to replace mine and that’s all their computer would take. I still don’t even know what it was, since I couldn’t see it. They did the same thing to the login ID.

I went in, glad we had a local branch. Not what I’d planned to do with my day, but glad that I’m mobile, at least, so that I could do it. I told the woman who ushered me over the first thing I’d been told on the phone, and she exclaimed an indignant, “WHAT?!”

Got that one on my side!

She could not fix it. She tried again. She called over to her manager for help. She said I would get a confirmation email of my new password, and she called our son to get his okay, but apologized that it would have to be followed up with a signed form he would have to turn right around in the mail for me to be able to put money in his account.

Twist his arm.

Hours later.

There is still no confirmation email.

The email they said they sent Richard yesterday informing us of the changes never materialized.

Neither of us can get in.

They have all our money and we have zero access. I imagine that could cause some excitement at the state regulator level if it’s not fixed fast.

And the kicker?  I was going to get to the post office afterwards to mail in two hats and a few good warm sweaters for Vermont flood relief. I was at that bank so long the post office would have been closed before I could get there. I was afraid I would be spending a lot of time watching someone staring at their computer screen (and I did) at that bank, so, looking at my shawl project and going, no way, I grabbed yarn and needles and headed out the door. I needed something small, portable, and mindless.

I cast on while she stared at her screen. I continued at Purlescence, in between holding and playing with babies and knitters.

…And there will now be a third hat going out to Vermont, again knit from Judy Sumner’s giant merino/silk hank. And I am finally admitting to myself that I felt all along like there had to be at least three with the same yarn in all of them or I would feel quite disappointed later. Another person needed one like that, someone somewhere out there, known to God.

And that’s far more important than any silly computer nonsense. But it took the computer nonsense to get me to put aside what I thought I wanted to do and sit down and start it. It had felt compelling but I had ignored the feeling–it is such a relief to watch it coming to be after all!