It’s about time for an update.

First up: the hair straightener that was supposed to change my life. It hasn’t. You’re not surprised, are you?

I received it (thanks to the lovely Banke), which was the only good thing about it. Back when I was researching straightening irons, the Sedu quickly climbed up the ranks because it was supposed to work miracles on the coarsest hair. A few Black women posted their before and after pictures and I was impressed, even though I knew that African hair and African American hair are not necessarily similar in thickness, texture or susceptibility to mechanical straightening tools. I should not have been surprised that my hair appears to be from the land of Impossible.

I’ve used the straightener a few times and although I didn’t take the 30+ minutes that my hair dresser did to straighten it, one slow swipe of the hair straightener through my locks does not result in the same “swinginess” it had when I left the hair dresser’s place. Disappointed, I put the hair straightener away until late last week when I realized that if I want to return it I have only until the end of this month to do so.

My friend has a hair straightener (a HAI) and one swipe of hers makes my hair sizzle (the way I judge the efficacy of a straightener, since my hair always sizzles when straightened by my hair dressers), and some swinginess is observed, more than with my Sedu. I think her machine is better and to prove it, I’m going to straighten half of my hair the front of either side of my hair with her flat iron, and half with mine. Based on the results, I’ll decide if I’m shipping back the Sedu.

I’ll spare you the complaints at having to pay so much to ship it back.

Credit card woes
I am so sick of using credit cards. First I discover that somehow my credit card information was used to purchase a domain (name unknown) I didn’t purchase and had to cancel that card and apply to get the charge removed. It’s my magic Shopper’s Optimum card so it makes me very sad that my points aren’t racking up at their usual swift pace. My replacement card hasn’t showed up yet and I keep stopping by the bank, only to find out I’m out of luck.

I had to send in an affidavit saying that I didn’t spend that $35.33. About a month later I found out through a fluke that my name is on an online list of people who own spam domains. When I did a whois on the site, it showed that the domain was purchased right around the date that I “purchased” the weird domain according to my credit card statement! I just wish I knew where my credit card information was obtained from. I’m officially leery of internet transactions.

But even in-person transactions have going awry. Remember last year at the restaurant? Well my latest statement on my other credit card shows that I was charged double for the shopping trip that resulted in a carving for my friends and one for myself. The culprit was a kiosk in the mall. At the time I had asked the girl manning the booth if they had a physical store somewhere and they do. I even took a business card but who knows if I still have it. I tried calling my credit card company to report this but their system that stores customer information is down, which was pretty much the last thing I wanted to hear.

This situation is really annoying to me because how can I prove that I didn’t make both purchases? It was easy in the restaurant scenario because why would I pay for two meals on the same day at the same time with the same card separately? Also, I never signed for the second bill; she ran my card through twice and it was someone else who signed for it. I have my original receipt (thank God that I do not toss receipts until I compare them to my statement!) but couldn’t I just have tossed the other receipt? I’m hoping they’ll realize that the chances of me buying something that rang up at the exact same price one after the other, especially since there was only one of one of the carvings I bought are slim. I get nervous in situations like this and I hate feeling like i have to prove myself when I did nothing wrong. Grrr.

When you hear a few months from now that I now store my money in a ziploc bag between my mattress and box spring and go about muttering about how banks are evil, do not judge me too harshly. I have my reasons.

Filed under: Money, Mundane by jummy