DECLINED

It could have happened to anyone. It was an ordinary day. My wife and I had a major celebratory event occur in our lives and I wanted to commemorate it with a piece of jewelry. I had picked something out a month ago. I even put it in layaway and had been making weekly payments on it getting it down to a balance that I could afford to pay off. I owed $x,xxx.00 on the balance of the bauble, and this weekend marked the event. Would she be surprised!

Being the pseudo computer geek that I am, I paid the balance owed to my credit card company on line the day before I went to pick up the little sparkly so I wouldn’t have to write a check. On Friday, off to the jewelers to get my shiny gift out of hock.

It was soooo pretty, all laid out in the leather bound folder. “Do you want it gift wrapped?” asked the lady. “Of course I do!” I responded. The owner of the store is a friend of mine. We belong to the same club. He runs a hell of a business. The store, as usual, was filled with customers. Bill brought out the layaway slip. “I still owe you $x,xxx.00!” I told him before he could get the words out of his mouth.

I pulled out the credit card and gave it to one of his clerks to process. She kept punching the buttons and the machine kept whirring. Then I heard the words every person dreads. From the clerk’s lips came “Bill, we have a problem. The credit card has been DECLINED.” DECLINED, I thought? The card has a credit balance of $x,xxx.00. Then the lady looked over to me and said “I am sorry, Mr. Mangie, you card has been DECLINED.” “Run it again!” Bill said. “It’s still DECLINED” the clerk responded…a third time…and a fourth time. DECLINED echoed around the room like the Grand Canyon.

Of course, none of this happens in a vacuum. A hush came over the customers who tried not to appear that they were staring at me. Two old ladies were whispering to each other at another section of the jewelry counter. There you have it. The whole world now knew that my credit card had been…….DECLINED! In a jewelry store…buying hot rocks.

I tried to be nonplused. I quietly asked Bill if there was a phone I could use that would allow me to call the credit card company and to check out what this was all about. He took me to the other side of the store, and dialed for dollars, hitting the “O” button as the phone tree started. In a flash, I was talking to Dehli Dan. I explained the problem to him, and he advised me that my card had not been declined, the purchase was put on HOLD. But I told him the credit card processing machine read “declined” not one, but four times. He said the purchase was larger than my usual amount, and they just wanted to make sure it was me making the purchase.

Then why didn’t it say “contact the credit card company”? “Not to worry!” Dehli Dan told me. He had pushed a few buttons, and the problem was fixed. "Tell them to run it through again." I walked to the other side of the store, and quietly told the girl to do it again. “It is still being DECLINED!” she loudly announced. The two old women on the other side of the counter were now looking at me out of the corner of their eyes talking non-stop.

I went back to the phone and told Dehli Dan that it refused to accept it again. “Do it again!” he told me. I walked back to the other side of the store. The same clerk said “Mr. Mangie, it just won’t accept the credit card. It is still DECLINED!” Everybody tried not to look. I knew they wanted to. Those two old ladies’ mouths were now going a mile a minute.

In desperation, I told the owner of the store to get on the phone and talk to Dehli Dan and see what he could do. In a few minutes, they processed the transaction over the phone rather than through the credit card machine. I grabbed my package, and got the hell out of there, with those two friggin old ladies still yakking up a storm while pointing as I tripped over the door jam trying to escape.

But not all is well that ends well. In the conversation between the store owner and Dehli Dan, I heard the store owner try to give Dehli Dan his store number. You know, so the credit card company would know to whom to pay the money from the charge. Dehli Dan told the owner he didn’t need the store number. So today I am going back to make sure that everything is alright because as of noon today, it still isn’t showing up on my online credit card statement.

On the other hand, maybe I should just stay home. With my luck, the clerk who handled the transaction would call the owner shouting: “Hey boss! That guy is back. You know. The one who was here yesterday and his credit card was….DECLINED!”