The Coolidge, AZ Car Payment Adventure of 2009
It took me a while to convince my wife of the benefits of online bill pay. Since she converted a couple years back, it's been a relatively error-free experience. The new year started off with a rather unfortunate mistake that resulted in an unplanned road trip to the thriving metropolis of Coolidge, Arizona. Allow me to explain.
We have an American Express card through the local Costco. We also have a car loan through an obscure California-based bank. Sure, there are branches in Arizona. All of them conveniently located several miles from civilization. My wife made (or so she thought) our car payment at the end of December. When she logged into our bank account a few days later, she realized that instead of sending said payment to the bank, it was instead applied to our American Express card. And the payment had already cleared. Not reversible. Not cool.
I called the bank to see if we could just make our car payment over the phone using our American Express card. No such luck. We could pay with a check over the phone, with a $10 processing fee added on. How lovely. So we decided to track down a branch and make the trek.
Because we didn't pack a lunch, we had to stop in town to replenish our electrolytes. In order to turn this into a bona fide adventure, I insisted that we eat at T&M Pizza instead of the Coolidge Pizza Hut. There's just something about eating at a unique hole-in-the-wall that turns a road trip into an adventure.
The food was mediocre, the tattoos were stylish, the bullet holes in the window above our booth were fear-inducing, and the soda refills were 75 cents. Overall, this was a life-changing experience. We're thinking of moving to Coolidge.
