The Grocery Store

I go to the grocery store to get money from the ATM to pay rent tomorrow. Surprise, the ATM is off-line. So I leave the grocery store and go to the little grocery store to get some milk and OJ. I whip out my card and think everything is going ok, and then they ask for my ID, which I forgot to get out of Wiley's wallet. I don't always carry my wallet, so he puts my ID in his because he always carries his. When I realize they want my ID, I pull out every other card I own that has my name on it - my Hertz card, even my voter ID registration, and I point to all of these things that have my signature on them and tell them the signatures are the same. Not that they can understand me - nobody spoke English and of course, my Bosnian is verrryyy limited. By this time, patrons are lining up and everyone is looking at my cards. In the end, they wrote down my credit card number on the receipt and stuffed it away. Wiley hadn't yet gotten on the tram to go to the post office, so I met him and got my ID, and then I went back and showed them that I was who I said I was. The checker laughed it off, basically saying I didn't have to do that (I think, but who really knows?), but it made me feel better.

Being the paranoid person that I am, I will be checking my card online every single day to make sure it's not being used by someone else. While I know who the checker is - she checks us out every time we go to the little store - I don't know the 20 year-old who told her to write down my number, nor do I know the little old lady or the man behind her checking out my stuff.