Dr. Phil

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This was a wonderful day almost ruined by a bank, and a drunken Irish asshole.

Let me say this, I am very displeased with Bank of America right now. For starters, they blocked my ATM card, because it was being used internationally. Not a big deal, only took them a week to do it, but they did it. After trying to contact them at their toll free international number, which I had to use my credit card at one point to dial, I decided to chuck that in and head out to the Aran islands with the tour group.

These islands are amazing. They are just off the coast and still use Irish Gaelic as the primary language. We rented bikes for 10 euro, which I had to borrow (quick aside, Brandon from Australia, great guy. At one point in the day I noticed that all I had in my pocket was an empty money clip (having spent my last 15 euro on the laundry service), which I felt was cruelly mocking me. I took it out and laughed with the guys about it. Brandon, without hesitation, took out his wallet, pulled out a 50 euro note, handed it to me and said “Put that in there. You pay it back later.” Character. That’s all I’m saying, character.)

We rode our bikes out and just checked out the ancient everything. It was quiet, and beautiful, and I became one of the few Texans ever to get sunburned in Ireland.

Now, we return home and I spend some time on the phone with BOA, who, after sitting on hold and verifying all my account information, refused to reactivate my card because I couldn’t give exact amounts of transactions in the past few days. Now, before you give me shit, tell me the EXACT exchange rate from US dollars to Euro 2 days ago? OK, how about from pound sterling to dollars 6 days ago? You can’t? Well, neither could I. Conceding that point she asked for some transactions before I left. Now, again, you tell me the exact amount you spent in a transaction 8 days, 5000 miles, 7 cities, and 4 countries ago? Can’t do it? Well, BOA don’t really care, not at this point, anyway.

SO I go upstairs, get on my computer and look up a few transactions, write them down, then go down to the lobby where I sit on hold for almost an hour before a very kind woman apologized and reactivated my card. She even told me that I had every right to close my account because “It is wrong of us to leave you stranded in another country with no money.” It all worked out and I got to enjoy a lovely duck dinner at the, no kidding, CHINAMAN restaurant. Then to a pub for some pints before returning to the hotel lobby bar where we were accosted by a really drunk Irish/Australian couple.

The wife, once she saw my Texas sweatshirt, started yelling, “DR.PHIL” and professing a desire to sodomize his wife. Her husband almost ended up in the hospital when he grabbed my hand and tried to pull me out the door. When he way I wouldn’t move he jumped up and hung around my neck. The other members of my tour helped by ushering me out of the room, as they saw my left hand clinched in a fist and my right hand clinched on a chair. Not knowing which I would hit him with they decided that it might be best for me to turn in and avoid an assault with a weapon charge.

All things considered, I had a blast.

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