I am having trouble keeping up with this computer driven world.  Credit cards have been around long enough that I couldn’t conceive how they could become a problem.  Not for old conservative Ish.  By using a credit card, I don’t have to carry around a lot of cash.  Then, pay them off each month and I’m golden.  NOT. 

I started hearing late last year that some of the players on my high school baseball team wanted to hold a reunion.  We are talking about the 1950’s.  And, it happened.  On Saturday, April 24, 2010, East Side High baseball players from 1954, 55, 56 and 57 met at the Collinsville Recreation Center to regale each other with long dormant memories.  I counted about 18 players.  No, we didn’t chose up sides.  Nobody even brought a ball or a glove.  But a scrapbook or two jogged a few memories.  After 55 years, the stories definitely get better.  The reunion was low key, but great. 

We stayed in O’Fallon, Illinois with Carole’s mom.  On Friday, I ducked out the back of the apartment complex to visit Schnucks Market.  I bought a gallon of milk and four “D” batteries.  I paid with my Visa card.  All went smoothly.  Why wouldn’t it?  The next day I slipped over to Schnucks for a bucket of chicken and my Visa card was denied!  I ran it through four times before the clerk explained that the machine recognized the card, but it was being denied.  That is so embarrassing.  You feel like everyone in the store has stopped what they are doing and are staring at you.  I whipped out a wad of twenties, displaying as much cash as I could and paid for the chicken. 

As soon as the chicken was sequestered, I called Visa.  Eventually, after convincing them that I was the card holder, they advised me that their records indicated fraud or a stolen card.  I assured them I had the card.  We went over our purchases for the last three days.  They were mundane charges that  one makes when traveling from Virginia to Illinois.  What is suspicious about eating at Cracker Barrel? 

The Visa representative had no authority to reactivate my card.  I’m 650 miles from home and some computer, which is unhappy with my travels, has shut down my card.  I was transferred to Visa Security.  After again identifying myself to their satisfaction and going over my recent transactions, they agreed to reactivate my card.  I was further told that I needed to contact the Pentagon Federal Credit Union (my Visa carrier) and let them know I was traveling.  And, in the future, contact them before I leave the state.  Otherwise, the sophisticated computer system  will track me down and shut me down. 

I called PFCU.  The woman wanted my PIN number.  I do have a PIN number.  It is in a ledger back in Springfield, Virginia.  She advised me that there was another way to identify me.  It consisted of a series of computer generated questions that only I (the true card holder) would be able to answer.  I answered two of the first three correctly.  Not good enough.  The computer generated questions had a better memory that I had.  I didn’t do as well on the next three questions.  I only got one right.  Finally after answering the first two questions correctly, she asked me to identify the state in which Sandy Rice was living.  I passed.  This permitted me to tell them that I was traveling and would be for a couple more days.  I presume this information was fed into the security computer so it wouldn’t get excited when I charged a motel bill in Beckley, West Virginia.  

So our next trip is at the end of the month.  I will have to call PFCU and tell them where we are going to be and on what days.  What I want to know is who is working for whom?  This crosses my mind every time a check out clerk is explaining to me what I need to do to process my credit card through the machine.  Didn’t they used to do that for us? 

On my next trip, I am now fearful I will have car trouble and be late getting to the Kentucky State line.