A Disadvantage to Cycling.

Sure, cycling is the solution to so many modern problems.  But yesterday we discovered one major disadvantage to cruising along on two wheels:  when your wallet slips out of your pocket, it lands in the gutter somewhere, not on a plush leather seat where you'll find it later.  It's weird to lose everything crucial like that in one go: credit cards, debit cards, ID cards.   You go to the bank to get out some cash because you no longer have your debit card. But they need to see some ID... and they're stubborn English people who have no concept of customer service.  You produce a passport, but that won't do.  No, they will not look up your account number.  You should have thought of that before you lost your wallet.  They ask you the world's strangest security questions like, "what was your zipcode in 2002?" which baffles you since you've moved about 10 times since 2002. 

Deciding that it is no longer acceptable to endure their patronizing frowns and be shooed like a dung fly, you threaten to close the account. You're dead serious.  You tell them this is ridiculous and you're going elsewhere, close it. right now. and they get all scared and the manager shows up and grovels and suddenly you're a human being and they can magically do everything they were unable to do before.

Plastic money is pretty cool.  You lose your wallet, you call a phone number (or, in the case of Barclay's bank, you threaten to leave), and poof those bits of plastic aren't money anymore. Also, one very nice disadvantage to being poor: there was never any cash in your wallet. 

Anyone willing to impersonate Marc and go into the Utah Driver's License Bureau to get him a new license?  Apparently you have to get it in person.