Unaccessible

I rang up over 60 euros worth of groceries today. Everything was thrown overboard by the unusual purchases of a big bottle of olive oil, a bottle of shampoo and conditioner, and lots of refillable dishsoap.

So after I rang everything up, I went to go pay with my card in the funky French machines. I entered my code, and my card was refused. The guy told me to try again. I did, and my card was refused. The six people in line behind me started getting annoyed, and the guy suggested I try to pull money out of the machine around the corner. Three people were in line at the machine, so I ran back to the register and told him it was going to be awhile.

"Take your time," he said, as the six people in line shot darts in my direction.

Of course, I couldn't pull money out of the machine, either. Why? This is the (translation of) the message the machine said, "Your bank is not accessible at this moment. Please try again later."

I would normally worry that all of the money I thought I had for this month has disappeared (it happens to me all the time), but I didn't get the normal message ("Your authorized withdrawal amount has been surpassed. Please contact your bank.") - but really? What kind of bank is not "accessible" at 15.00 on a Saturday afternoon? Grr... I've always hated my bank.

So of course I had to put all of my products off to the side, while the six people smirked and thought happily to themselves "Well, that girl might have made us wait, but at least she is being humiliated by having to do the walk of shame back from the bank... WITHOUT ANY MONEY IN HER HANDS!!! Mwa ha ha ha!" and I wanted to yell to all of them, "MY BANK IS NOT ACCESSIBLE, MY BANK IS NOT ACCESSIBLE!!!"

I needed the groceries, whether I liked it or not, and so this meant I had to run back to my house, up my flights of stairs, run back to the grocery, wait in line again, pass my articles through the beeper machine again, and try to pay again.

NOT my favorite way to do grocery shopping.