Had my first, making life complicated, story today. ("Today" was actually a couple of days before Sue and kids arrived a while back.)
I left the house to do some grocery shopping. Got to the check out and went to pay with my Bankomat card (a debit card from a European bank). Entered the PIN and it said "PIN falshe" (PIN false). I'm like, ok, I've done this 3 or 4 other times (without looking it up on my iPhone, which for the first time I did not have with me), so I must have just entered it wrong. I enter the PIN again, with sweat forming on my brow. "PIN falshe" again! Ugh ... now I'm doubting that I have it right in my head. But I slowly enter the same code ... "PIN falshe."
I try to tell the cashier that I'll regroup and think about this. She eventually calls for someone to cancel the transaction. I try to block out the 4 people that developed in the queue while I was this series of events transpired (it was empty when I started). I think, "surely I just switched the last two digits." When the queue clears, she checks me out again (has to rescan everything). The critical moment comes and I enter the new, I think, correct PIN. It goes through! Or does it, what's this new screen say? I can't tell, she cancels, I try again. Same thing. Seems to take the PIN and goes further, but then gives me a new error ("Konto inaktiv" -- account inactive). I give up, pack up my stuff to put aside until I return, decide to head home to get my phone so that I can look up the PIN and it dawns on me. I'm locked out of my account due to the three errors! So, I turn around and head to City Park (the local shopping mall that is nearby). I find an ATM, take out money with our US debit card and head back somewhat triumphantly with cash! I turned a 20-minute shopping trip into an hour of stress (and a trip to the bank tomorrow)! I came home, put a warm Radler in the freezer, went out for a bike ride. Came home, popped the Radler, and all is right with the world.
But this mishap picked up the next day right where it left off. I went to the bank and told them what happened. The teller told me that I needed to find an ATM not in the foyer (this bank? any bank? I'm not sure) and if I enter the PIN correctly, that'll unlock the card. So, I get on my bike and ride a few blocks to an ATM that is outside of a bank. I enter the PIN and it goes through, but like yesterday, it says, "Konto inactiv."
I do back to the bank and tell my tale of woe. She shows me on a couple of computer screens that my account is still active. So she gets on the phone with someone at the main office in Wien (Vienna). She is on for a while with a little back and forth. She hangs up the phone and relays what she's been told. Yes, when I made three mistakes yesterday they locked my account. My account will stay inactive all of today (the day after). Tomorrow, I get one chance to enter it correctly (at any ATM, even the ones in the foyer -- "they fixed that," she says). If I am wrong, my account will be inactive the rest of the day and the following day. I then get another chance on the next day. If wrong, locked for the rest of the day and the next day. She says, and by now, she is speaking more loudly with each iteration and attracting the attention of everyone in the bank, "you can play this game seven times. If you lose all seven times, the card will be permanently locked, just throw it away."
And for the record, I didn't need to "play the game" seven times. Once was enough and I now not only have the PIN memorized, but also a picture burned into my head of the pattern the numbers make on the keypad. Which, according to my Austrian colleagues and friends, when you do that (have some other way to remember something) is called an "Esle Brüke," a "donkey bridge." So, I at least got another Austrian expression out of this :-)
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