Cheque, please.

Okay so I thought the unbelievable day I had yesterday deserved a blog entry, so here it is. I really don't know whether the day was hilarious or just really shitty, because it felt like I consecutively had the worst and the best luck possible.

I should mention the whole mess was triggered last Monday when I went to request a cheque from the bank. Another good point of note is that cheques are really uncommon in Finland, we have never really gotten into the habit of using them like the Americans or even Brits. Things just work better with well, means that are not so old-fashioned. So yes, I went to request a cheque. An international cheque. After much perplexity from the bank employee we got things rolling and they told me it should be done in a few days and they'd call me then.

And now, let's zoom ahead to Friday 9/9.

@9:00 I wake up with a horribly sore throat.

@11:15 I have made it to Helsinki and I go to the bank (Only this particular branch deals with foreign affairs) to inquire about the state of my cheque. I need it next Monday latest so I cannot afford to wait any longer. The employee I get to talk to this time is as clueless as the first one and I have to explain a couple of times what I had done at the bank on the previous Monday. After much running around and calling a few numbers she is able to reach someone who works at the office where cheques are sent to and made. She finds out that my request has never made it to that place, the employee I talked to on Monday had sent it to the wrong place. Well no worries, they now scanned the original request form that was stored at the bank and e-mailed it to the office. They sort things out in such a way that they'll make it right away and even send someone from the bank to go get it instead of mailing it, so that it will be at the bank for me to pick up today. Excellent.

@12:43 I have made it out of the bank and on the train back home.

@13:20 I am home and have 10 minutes before I need to leave to go to my violin lesson. I have no time to eat a proper lunch so I grab something small and jet off again. I make a plan to head back to the bank afterwards by driving to Myyrmäki and catching the train from there. I mean, sure I could pick it up on Monday but I don't really want to leave it that late in case they still don't get the cheque sort for me.

@14:10 I arrive (late) for my lesson.

@ 15:20 Lesson is over and I start driving towards Myyrmäki. There is a very horrible traffic jam on Kehä III and I am stuck on the road for a very long time.... Not a problem otherwise, but banks close at 16:30. So at this point I am really fighting against time. The bank turns the knife in the wound by calling me that they now have my cheque. In the end I take a weird route, hoping that would make me save time...

@15:50 I make it to Myyrmäki and I am able to catch the last possible train I could take and make it to the bank on time. A few stations before Helsinki the train stops and they announce that due to some electricity failures on the railways we are stuck for a while. Oh great.

@16:23 The train arrives at Helsinki and I start running like a madman. I am even carrying my violin with me, since no way in hell was I going to leave that in the car.

@16:27 I make it to the bank just as they are locking the place down. They let me come in to receive my cheque. I look at the cheque and they have misspelled part of the recipient's name. I think if I owned a gun, I would have shot myself at this point. Oh and of course the first thing they think is that I misspelled it on the request form, but I am not that stupid. Now there is no way I could request a new one, considering how I need to send the cheque on Monday. They assure me it should not cause problems and if it did the bank the recipient goes to cash in the cheque could always call them to check the authenticity of the cheque.

@16:43 I am sitting on the train waiting for it to depart from Helsinki so I can get home finally. An announcement comes on saying we cannot depart because the driver is nowhere to be found....
Really? REALLY?!

@17:30 I get home. I am not feeling very well so I decide to eat a bit later.

@20:00 I finally go eat and while my food is in the microwave I decide to check my temperature, since my cheeks have felt really hot all evening. Turns out I have a fever.

@21:30 I take the dogs out. No mercy from mom who is too occupied with the things on her mind lol. Plus I think she sort of wanted revenge for how she had to keep walking the dogs day in day out when she had a bad fever in the spring when me nor my dad was in Finland to help her. Sorry mom but I did not do that to spite you, I was busy getting a good degree. xD

SERIOUSLY THOUGH. ANY MORE SHIT THAN THAT AND I WOULD HAVE KEELED OVER. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother making such an effort. Sigh lol. But really, considering how shit things went - I sort of was lucky too that everything sort of sorted itself out? Well, as long as the cheque works and all of this was not for nothing I think I can laugh about this later.