August 22, 2008
Due to a slightly lower interest rate, I switched to using my Discover card earlier this year, right before Katsucon in February. Except for a couple instances at the con of people not taking the card I did well for several months, and not too long after Katsucon I took the Visa card out of the quick-access part of my wallet.
Until I went to Otakon and ran into two more restaurants that don't take Discover. I apologized to my friends as they covered those meals (I paid them back later of course) and muttered a few non-complimentary things under my breath about the restaurant industry in the Charm City.
Then I flipped open the other part of my wallet the other day to swap in my newest Smithsonian membership card. And right there behind my driver's license was... the damn Visa card! Apparently, back in February I had a moment of brilliance -- brilliant in this case being "slightly below average intelligence" -- and stashed the Visa away just in case the Discover didn't work somewhere.
Followed immediately by my forgetting that I'd done so.
But the story does have an upside: Not one hour after relating this story to a friend of mine, I offered to cover the check at a sushi place. The nice lady behind the counter told me they don't take Discover, and I casually whipped out the Visa and paid. Of course, I'll probably forget all about this in a week or two, so if you see me whining and complaining in a little while about such-and-such place not taking Discover, be sure to point my dumb ass right back here.
