Ambush at Not-so-O.K. Corral

I’ve been off the grid these past few weeks. And with good reason. No, scratch that. With good number of scratches and gashes. I was still in action. Only, off the grid.

You know those days when life ambushes you. Yeah. Like when you’ve chosen a quiet, off-the-track, backwater location for your summer getaway and find a thousand other people had a same idea. And intend to leave after you do.

Or when that blue-chip you’ve been tracking for months and had always wanted to buy is at a 52-week low but just when you’re about to hit ‘Buy’, your computer chooses that very moment to slink into a self-imposed digital trance and hang like a sloshed bat.

Or when three past clients rendezvous at a secret mountain hideout and conspire to offer you a full-time book writing assignment all at the same time. With no back-out clause. (I’m not complaining. But, still… Oh, well!)

It’s also times like when you’re directed to the 19th level at one of those dizzying parking lots at tech parks and you spiral (well, crawl, but let’s go with ‘spiral’) your way up only to be told that there was a glitch in the availability indicator and the vacant lot is actually in the adjacent tower.

You know you’re in guerilla cross-fire from life and Murphy when it’s the last day for paying your cell phone bill, and you can’t pay online since your data connection’s been suspended in anticipation of non-payment, and you can’t renew your data connection at the collection center since it’s a Sunday.

You definitely know you’re the “chosen one” when you slave on Photoshop for weeks to create that perfect book cover art and on the day you’re about to download the pdf, you’re told by Adobe that your account’s been discontinued since they no longer support Windows XP.

And you know you’re most certainly in the crosshairs of the meanie up there when you’re advised by your bank to make good on a missed payment on your mortgage by dropping off a physical cheque at the nearest branch, you do that, and four days later you find that not only has the cheque been cashed but also the bank’s auto-debit system has debited whatever’s left in your account balance towards the mortgage payment. Reason? That’s what the system’s been designed to do as a follow-up procedure. Right, but no one told me that. Not even customer care when I’d called them for advice in the first place. D-uh!

So, yes, though 2014 kicked off in spectacular fashion, it’s been ambush-at-not-so-OK-corral ever since. Time to head them off at the pass. Gidyap! I’m back with a vengeance. In stirrups!