Dateline: 05.19.2020
Portales, New Mexico
I awoke around 7am and as usual, grabbed my phone from the nightstand and began to check my
messages, emails, etc. and the first thing I notice is a message from my phone carrier that my monthly
payment is due. No worries, I had set the amount aside, so I just needed to do the payment through the
phone’s payment center. I dial the number, go through the prompts until I reached the payment options
and pressed debit card. A few years ago, I was worried about cyber security and thought it might be a
good idea to memorize my driver’s license and banking info, including my debit card. I enter the card
number, expiration date, 3-digit code, zip code and hit the pay button.
“Your request has been denied”, my phone tells me.
Well maybe I got something wrong, I think, as I reach for my wallet. I carefully check all the information
and enter it again.
“Your request has been denied.” the phone says, and this time it sounds a little irritated. I can’t check
my account online because I need the phone for two-step verification. Now, I’m a little irritated as I
borrow my wife’s phone to call the bank.
“Why don’t you just use my card, and you can pay me back later?”, she asks.
“I know the money’s in there, and if its not, I need to find out why.” I guess she knew not to bother me
by the look on my face, so she just turned away. I hoped I would remember to apologize after I got this
straightened out.
(FREEBIE -When a husband tells his wife about an issue, its just passing information, not asking for
advice or help. When a wife tells her husband about an issue, usually looking for emotional support, we
see it as a mission, and go searching for our white armor. Only to see her tear up or blow up, because
we don’t understand y’all.)
I snap back to the present when the bank answers. Of course, it’s a bot. I must go through six
commercials asking about everything from diabetes care to final expenses. I’m thinking I dialed the
wrong number, when finally, a female voice asks how she could assist me. I tell her about the attempts
to pay my telephone bill and after a brief hold, she tells me that my card is locked because of suspicious
activity. She lets me know that she must transfer me to the fraud department. The fraud department
has me go over seven or eight charges that had occurred after a website needed my card to verify my age for a free trial.

None of the charges were connected to the first one that caused concern, so I
wondered why they would just turn the card off without trying to contact me. She did not have the
answer, but she did have the number I would need to unlock my card. She said I could call myself or go
to the local bank and have them help me. It was only eight o’clock, so I had decided to call myself, when
I realized I still did not have a way to call and pay my phone. I apologized to my wife for my being in a
bad mood and she let me use her phone again and would pay the bill once I contacted them. I thank her
and call my phone provider to pay my bill. I get through the process without a blip and hit enter to make
the payment.
“You have exceeded the maximum number of attempts allowed for this service. Goodbye.” Click.
I stared at the phone in disbelief and barked at my wife to get dressed
First stop was my bank, and I was fortunate to get with a banker, who was also the bank manager. I told
her I needed my card unlocked and she said, “Let me have your debit card and driver’s license. This
should only take a minute.” Thirty minutes later she is asking the person on the other end, “So, you can
only lock accounts and not release them? Do you have that number?” While she is dialing the new
number, I let her know how irritating it was to have to listen to ads unrelated to banking when I called.
She finishes the call and lets me know the card is ready for use. We both are relieved, when she neglects
to ask if there is anything else she could do for me. We leave the bank and head to the phone store. It
looks deserted, but we are first in line. The clerk gives me a five-dollar credit after hearing of my
disastrous morning, and it looks like we can finally start our day. Since the wife is driving, I turn on my
phone and notice the date.
“Where do you want to go now?”, she asks.
“Home, its FRIDAY THE 13TH!”.
Hello everybody, anyone have similar experiences? I’m not a believer but ………

Okay, we did have a winner from last week and the consensus was Vegas. So where were we, oh yeah.
Was I talking to the same Cheryl the guys in Okinawa had warned me about? I was at a loss for words
when Cheryl spoke again.
“What happened, you run out of quarters?”
“I’m sure you know that incoming calls are free.”, I reply.

It was the beginning of a long conversation that covered multiple topics and it was the first time I had
ever talked so long with someone of the opposite sex, and not one minute was filled with small talk or
awkward silence. That night I fell in love with the woman that would become my first wife. It would take
two more weeks of nightly phone calls before I had the nerve to ask her out. I learned that she and her
husband were legally separated, and that he, despite their having two young kids, was already engaged
to a new wife. Cheryl was from a small town in Ohio, and I remembered it because one of my sisters
had a good friend that lived there. I had worked there for a couple of weeks during my summer
internship with The Corps of Engineers, while in college. She had married young and had to drop out of
school during her first pregnancy. This was the first assignment that allowed her and the children to
accompany him, and by then, the marriage was suffering from the extended separations. I had an idea
of her physical appearance from our conversations, and I think neither of us were disappointed with our
first meeting. I did not have a vehicle, so we arranged to meet at the base theater. I was looking for a
petite, and shapely Black woman with short hair, wearing a red sweater and white pants. When she
showed up, I almost turned around and ran. She was stunning, and her smiling dimples made her eyes
twinkle. She looked as sultry as her voice sounded and her matching red handbag and shoes gave her a
cosmopolitan look. Neither of us could remember what was playing at movies that night or how long we
stayed at the NCO club, just that it was a wonderful time. I met my roommate shortly after my first date
with his wife and he was relieved that Cheryl was moving on, and he did not seem to miss his kids. He
never made it back to the room except to gather his belongings and I never saw him again. Cheryl began
introducing to their friends on base and off and they readily accepted me. There was one couple that we
really connected with and the four of us were inseparable, even renting a motorhome for a trip to San
Diego, and traveled to Los Angeles, but Vegas was our playground, and we took full advantage of it. I
met the kids about two months after Cheryl and I started dating, and when her mom came to visit for
Labor Day, I asked her permission to move in with her daughter. We had to move off base soon because
Cheryl was giving her husband the divorce he asked for and I did not qualify for housing as a single man.
I had two years remaining in the Air Force and Cheryl had made it clear that she wanted to stay in
Nevada. I was nervous about leaving the service without a plan, but I was in love. I asked her twice to
marry me, but she said no. Finally, shortly before my enlistment was to end, we were at the service club
one night and I convinced her to marry me. It was near the end of the year, and I argued we could get more money back if we filed jointly. We married in December, but Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder could see the red flags in our relationship. but for now, we partied.

That’s it for this week’s edition and it turns out last week’s contest was sort of unfair because family members took part and should have been ineligible. To find Hadji’s first day in court go to You Tube and enter: U.S. Airmen arrested on drug charges in Turkey, in 1974.

Barron Broomfield