Deactivated

I had one job. Just one job to do while my main squeeze was out of town on business. All I had to do was get school socks for the girls.

I remembered that I had two $5 gift certificates for Old Navy, so I went there after work and rummaged through the children's sock displays to find plain white or plain navy socks that are suitable to accompany a Catholic school uniform.

After successfully finding plain white socks for a five-year-old foot, I went across the store to locate plain white socks for a nine-year-old foot. God forbid they be in the same place...or anywhere near the shoes.

After standing in line with two packages of socks for over 20 minutes, the cashier called me over and asked me if I found everything okay. I lied and told him that I did.

I used my Old Navy card...rewind...I inserted my Old Navy card into the credit card machine only for it to be denied. The cashier informed me that my credit card had been deactivated, probably because I hadn't used it in over six months.

He attempted to set me up with a new credit card because I was not able to use the gift certificates without using my store credit card for the remaining balance. I felt uncomfortable setting up a new credit card to purchase socks for crying out loud, not to mention I was afraid that it would negatively affect my credit score.

Luckily, that application got declined for whatever reason...okay? I ended up putting the gift certificates back in my wallet and simply paid with my debit card. Oh well, it was worth a try.

I ran to Target and picked up other things that I needed, the whole time stewing about the stupid socks and my interaction with Old Navy and my declined card. In a weird way, I felt like I was some financial delinquent.

Had my credit been compromised? Had I really not used the card in six months? That's very unlike me.

Once returning home, I contacted the phone number on the back of the card just to see what the heck had happened. Prepared to reprimand the phone representative because I was embarrassed while at checkout and afterward, something he had nothing to do with, I was relieved to hear that whatever happened in the store was simply a miscommunication of some kind. It's not that my Old Navy card had been deactivated, it was that I had never activated my new Old Navy card. That explains why today's credit card application was denied. I already had active card. Well, sort of.

In my opinion, there's a huge difference between not activated yet and deactivated.

While I am thankful that everything is essentially back to normal, I'm still annoyed with the cashier at Old Navy for not even suggesting that it was a possibility that I hadn't activated the card at all. He made it sound like my account had been shut down without my consent.

I refuse to take the fall for this one.

Speaking of fall, I need to get back to Old Navy. They have some great fall looks.