An exciting story and a big tip for you!

It seems like I collected most of my wild stories when I lived in Dallas. Bare with me for a few minutes and I promise to get to the Works for Me Wednesday part.

A few years back, I lived in downtown Dallas. At that time I had the "blingiest" purse known to man woman. Just imagine in your mind for a moment, black lining with every color of the rainbow sequins draping the outside. You know the kind. . .the kind that was popular back then and the sequins fell off all over the place, but you carried it till it shed every last dangling sequin. I bought it at Sam Moon. Aggh, do you see the drool when I think about Sam Moon. Anyway, I loved my purse as well as my cute pink Liz Claiborne wallet.

Not as much as I love my life though. I was enjoying a nice fast food dinner at Taco Bell with my kids, a girlfriend and her 3 kids. If you know me, you know I was talking more than eating and was not paying any attention to what was going on around me. That is when I felt a push from behind me and saw my dazzlling diva purse go right out the door. Two guys had come into Taco Bell, scoped out the place and snatched my purse.

The point is that when guys like this snatch your purse and run out your money is sure to be going out even quicker. Before I got home, my debit card had been used. I canceled all of my credit cards as quickly as possible, but there was one thing I did not cancel. You're not going to believe it.

. . .my library card. I did not cancel my library card. In Dallas, they notify you if you are late on returning your books via email. I had a book out, but it was just this one book and so I ignored my emails that kept coming. Finally, one day they were being so insistent about the emails that I popped one open and realized that there was something odd going on. I figured it was just a mistake on their part, but then started thinking I needed to stop by the library to clear this up. I ended up having to go to the Main Dallas Library to solve the mystery when they informed me that I owed them like $1,000 for over 20 CD's and DVD's + late fees that were out on my card. My mouth dropped and I started to tear up when I realized that they were serious. You see my husband was in seminary at that time and we were Buh Roke, BROKE!!!!

The not-so-kind or compassionate librarian said that we would be turned over to a collection agency if we did not pay it. I could not believe it. This group of scoundrels, the thieves, not the librarians, had charged up my library card. The librarian said that I was supposed to report my card as lost or stolen. I said, "you have got to be kidding me. . .my library card!!!"

We talked with the person that was in charge of this kind of dilemma and she said that we needed to replace $200 worth of the merchandise and they would not report us to the collection agency and this would be over. We got on half.com and found $200 worth for about $85.00. We probably bought it back from the thieves. Can you believe this? So the moral of the story is that when your purse is lost or stolen, CANCEL YOUR LIBRARY CARD TOO!