Insufficient funds

The husband and I headed out early this morning, with both boys; our destination was an Apple store. We're getting a pretty big tax return this year, and after much consideration have narrowed down what we'd like to spend our money on. We DESPERATELY need a new mattress, as the one we are sleeping on now is the same one my husband had had for about a year or so before we got married (which puts the mattress at about 5 years old). This mattress was purchased at IKEA for maybe $300, tops, if that gives you any idea as to how insanely NOT comfortable it is. It literally has springs poking out of it in places.

In addition to the mattress, we also need a new laptop. This one I'm using right now is at least 6 years old- the battery doesn't hold a charge anymore, so it can only be used when its plugged into the wall; half the keys don't show up when you hit them, so I'm CONSTANTLY having to go back and add letters to words that aren't there, even though I really did type them, I swear! And the power plug in the back is so freaking sensitive that all you have to do is look at the thing wrong and BAM! It shuts down. All the time. So, we were off to Apple to pick up a couple shiny new MacBooks.

Well, I'm still using that old rundown laptop (I'm not even joking: that first part of the sentence looked like this before I went back and fixed it: "Wll, I'm sill uing ht old runwn lapop..." I want to kill this thing!), because stupidly enough neither Greg nor I bothered to refresh our memories as to what the credit limit is on the one credit card we have before we took it on a shopping excursion. We were flabbergasted when the associate handed us back our card and said that it wouldn't go through; we only carry a small balance on it, like $300 or so, and even that is unusual for us because normally we pay it off every month, but being that last month was Christmas, well, we let it slide this time. But even if the balance had been at zero, we still wouldn't have had enough credit. It turns out our limit is only $2500. Our total had come to just a hundred or so more than that. Is there anything more cheek-reddeningly (not a word, I know, thanks Spell check) embarrassing than having your credit card big fat DENIED? Ugh.

We're going to call the credit card company and request that they increase our credit limit (I was not aware until today that you could ASK them to do this; I thought you just had to be good and pay your bill on time and come home by curfew and get all A's and WAIT until Mom and Dad Visa noticed your stellar behavior and decided that you were mature and responsible enough for more freedom; I'm new at this credit thing) (as a sidenote, the reason I'm new to it is thanks in huge part to both Greg's and my parents, whom we saw suffer the consequences of major credit debt, and both of whom had to file for bankruptcy; they instilled the Fear of Debt in us and I thank them for that), and we'll get them then, so all's good. Plus, it's not like the card was denied because we were maxed out or something. Not that all our fellow customers knew this, of course. I'm sure they were all thinking a snorty "Yeah, right," as I made sure to say LOUDLY "Oh, that lovely credit card company, looking out for us and our identities and not allowing such costly purchases to be made without proper verification from us first... That's all it is, I'm sure," as Associate Tina returned our rejected card.

Since we can never show our rejected faces in Apple again, once we up our credit limit, we'll be placing our order online, and our lapops should be here in no time at all.