Mug Monday and ATM Madness!

 As I was unpacking all of my dishes I realized that I have blogged about all of my mugs!  All of my regular ones that is.  I still have a few ideas about how I can get another month's worth of Mug Mondays in, and one of those is to use some of my travel mugs.  And I was super excited to use the one I did today because it is brand new and I got it in China!  And not just in China, but at the Starbucks in our city, and it's purple, so basically when I saw it I knew I had to get it.

 I didn't have anymore money but I was willing to get some out in order to make the purchase, and there just so happened to be an ATM at the Crown Plaza just a little ways down from the Starbucks.  So Jessica and I walked over one evening and I stick my debit card in and start going through the process.  I had starting punching in my pin number, which I just do out of habit now, I don't really pay attention to the numbers, when I noticed the keypad is arranged in a different order than it is here, so I had entered my pin incorrectly and it told me to redo it.  The only problem was that I couldn't really remember my pin numbers.  Like I said, I mostly just do it out of habit, but my pin number is my cat's name, so as I'm punching in my pin I'm usually thinking of the letters and not the numbers.  I had punched one button and was trying to figure out what the next one was but I guess I waited too long because it sucked my card into the machine and said CARD RETRIEVED - CONTACT CARD ISSUER.  Jessica and I just stared at each and then the screen and then back at each and then I started freaking out.  I was thinking "Contact my card issuer?!? My card issuer is in America and I'm in China!  And I don't have a phone let alone know what number to call!" So we went over to the check-in desk and Jessica told them what happened, and based on their reaction it must happen a lot because the lady didn't seem surprised at all and just said, "Ok, we'll call someone to come get it out."  It would be a little while so we told them we'd go wait at Starbucks and then come back, which we did.  When we came back they weren't there yet but the lady told me I really needed to stay and wait there and not leave.  I told Jessica to go back to Starbucks and get her drink, which she hadn't done yet, and I looked around and saw some chairs and went over to have a seat.  It was just me and all these Chinese businessmen, reading the newspaper and being all professional and such.  Since I had no idea how long I was going to have to wait, I figured I should be productive and got out the stuff I was working on before the ATM fiasco.  I was making a thank you card to give to the students we'd been working with at the university.  We didn't have markers or anything, but Jessica had bought a coloring book to take to the orphanage and it came with a bonus pack of crayons, the ones like you used in kindergarten that are really fat, and so that's what I was using.  I almost started giggling when I thought about how ridiculous I looked sitting with all these businessmen, coloring with fat crayons.  And I ended up only having to wait about ten minutes until they came and got me, and all I had to do was show them my passport and they looked at it and then handed it, along with my debit card, back to me.  I was so relieved!  I went back to the ATM, correctly entered my pin (I had written it down just in case), and got my money!  I was so thankful the whole situation was taken care of quickly and easily, and it taught me to make sure I really know my pin number.

Waiting in Starbucks...