Another one of those days

Had my usual problem this morning when trying to submit a competition entry - I went to pay and was told my card provider had not authorized the payment. Do they see me coming or what? My heart sunk. I'd already submitted the story and PayPal was the only option for payment.

Panicking (I should be used to this by now as I've had the lot from internet crashes to the 'non-payment' message mid submission) I called PayPal, after I'd checked my card was still valid and trawled around their site to see if it was something I'd done. No, it was my credit card company. So I had to phone them. Both these calls had stupid non-human messages like 'say in a few words what you are calling about'. My requests were not recognised! By this time I was growing angry and as there was no actual person on the line, quite abusive! On ringing my credit card company I gave up and just said something they would understand and hoped they could transfer me if necessary. Luckily, I seemed to be through to the right department. They insisted there was nothing wrong - huh? Well, why were they refusing payment? They looked again. They said PayPal had a 'no pounds' transaction. What? I was supposed to be paying £8. I had light-bulb moment and said I'd probably been timed out of the transaction because I'd been stuck in the system so long. I made them wait while I found the website which then directed me once more to PayPal and I signed in. This time when I pressed 'pay' it went through.

I said to the lady - I don't know what you did but thank you. She stayed annoying calm throughout the whole thing and when I said goodbye she said to keep smiling! I said I'd try. I was exhausted after that. I think I deserve to win the competition after all the hassle and if I don't, I'll want to know why!

Just sending out stories is nerve wracking enough. It's difficult to find a competition that accepts longer stories (I must learn to write to certain lengths!). This one of mine is just over 9,000 words and the limit is 10,000. I was so excited to find somewhere to submit to and the story was ready to go, apart from a title. I've mulled over a title for three days before I found one I was happy with. Titles for stories are as difficult as finding title for poems.

While all this was going on with PayPal and my credit card company, the guinea pigs were having a set-to in the cage behind me and I even shouted at them. I immediately felt guilty because one of them only had an operation yesterday and I'd had the job of medicating her earlier, which is always a bit of trial. She must be feeling better to argue with her cage-mate, which she often does.

I need calm. I need music. Which is why I'm plugged into a Trance mix on YouTube right now still trying to find my sanity! Thank God for music.