I was all set to tell you an exciting tale of triumph, today.

I was ready to tell you that they kept laying out those hoops for me to jump through, and although I railed against their directives and balked at what was required, I did it.

I went to the Planning Office. I got a zoning permit. I called the IRS. I verified that I don’t have to have a separate EIN. I took my zoning permit to the County Office and applied for my business license. We had a brief discussion that went like this:

Them: And you have to put your EIN here.
Me: I don’t have an EIN.
Them: You need to have an EIN.
Me: No I don’t. I use my social security number when I do my taxes. That’s good enough for the IRS; is it a problem for you?
Them: Well, uhhh, I just don’t know what we’d do with that line.
Me: I’d be happy to fill in my social security number.
Them: No! Don’t do that! We’re not supposed to take those.
Me: Oh.
Them: Yeah.
Me: So, can I still get my license?
Them: I guess so. Here you go.

I am now 100% legal to work out of my house in my town, county, and state. It’s also legal for me to use my business name. So everything is great, right?

Well, it was.

Yesterday I took a month’s worth of paychecks to the bank. I had been refraining from depositing them because my bank accounts are still so completely screwed up that I am about to start over with a new (local; NEVER AGAIN will I deal with a “big national chain” based upon the utter lack of customer service I have received with this institution) bank. But I have bills to pay and I figured I could at least get these deposited, pay some bills, and then do the big switch.

But guess what I’m off to do today. Go on, guess! Why, I’m on my way to my new bank to set up new accounts, after which I will go back over to Big National Chain and tell them to bite me.

Go ahead and ask me why.

Well, yesterday I headed over to the bank at 4:15 to deposit a month’s worth of income, only to discover that the bank closes at 4:00. I find that stupid and annoying, but whatever. I’m not in charge. Maybe they break early for ice cream. Who knows. Anyway. I decided to deposit my checks at the ATM machine because the machines have all recently been upgraded to a system where they take each check individually and scan them and display then onscreen and on your receipt. That had to be safe, right?

I whipped out my brand new ATM card—because it took about three tries to even get this bank to send me a card, and I’m still waiting for my checks—and I popped it into the machine.

The machine stopped displaying PLEASE INSERT CARD and instead displayed THIS UNIT OUT OF SERVICE. PLEASE TRY ANOTHER LOCATION.

And there sat my ATM card… sticking about 1/16 of an inch out of the slot. Try as I might, I didn’t have tweezers handy, and so was unable to retrieve it.

So much for my tale of victory. I started out with “Hey, I’m finally official” and somehow ended at “Dude, I’ve only got $3 in my wallet.” Pitiful.