I have eaten 7 peanut butter sandwiches in the past three days.

Only about half of them had jelly.

This is because I have been stranded with almost no money in one of the most expensive cities in the world for 72 hours.

Trust me. I love peanut butter and jelly. But after awhile, it makes you go crazy. If you're interested in how I came to this point, please read on. The following account is a lively tale filled with mystery, sadness, deceit, heroism - and of course, bureaucratic red tape.


IT BEGAN innocently when I went to the Budgens near my Clerkenwell flat two Sunday mornings ago.

When I got to the counter, the apathetic-yet-polite clerk told me my card didn't work. I told him it was an American card, so maybe that was why. Not so. He swiped the card at least 20 times and it worked.

Luckily, my total was only £10, and I had about £9, or something like that. I only had to give up a bunch of grapes. I thought nothing of this incident. I figured it was just that my American card wouldn't work at the Budgens register.

At some point, I must have gone to an ATM or tried to buy something else, because by Sunday night I realized that my card had been deactivated. I borrowed £5 from my room mate Alex so that I'd have enough money to get to my internship. It was my first day there. I needed money because our tube pass only covers London zones 1 through 3, and my internship is in Morden, zone 4.

I made it to work and back. When I got back to the flat, I called Visa Card Services and they activated the card for me. Of course, I assumed that the message I left them before leaving the States hadn't been relayed to the right person.

The next morning, I picked up my £40 stipend at CAPA right before class. I paid Alex back. I spent some money on some food and things, like a prawn sandwich after work, etc. I must have gone out or done something otherwise and spent a little more money. On Thursday, our class went to Parliament. I bought some postcards and stamps later that afternoon. It's a good thing I didn't spend the £12 I wanted to spend to get into Westminster Abbey that day.

Anyway, when I got home from the Parliament trip, etc., I was planning on going to Hammersmith to go swing dancing, so I needed some more money (it cost £10 to get in). But when I got to the ATM next to the Sainsbury's grocery store, the machine said my card was faulty.

Apparently, my card had not been activated.

I was pretty upset. We came back and I gave Visa a call back. The person said I had no holds on my account and it wasn't flagged, so the problem was probably because I was using a Star ATM instead of a Plus ATM. Visa recently dropped its contract with Star. She said the Sainsbury's machine probably worked the first time because of a fault in the system, or because the company that runs the machine recently updated their computer system.

It sounded unlikely to me, too.

On Friday morning, the CAPA students all went on the Stonehenge and Bath day trip. I got £40 before the trip because I explained the situation to the CAPA faculty and they told me that I could get next week's stipend to pay for food and things on my trip.

Stonehenge and Bath were beautiful. I'll upload pictures of Bath soon. I spent some money on a sandwich in Bath, as well as a souvenir for a family member back home (~ £10). Then we came came back home and decided to go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (£6).

Early the next afternoon, I went to the change bureau. I didn't realize it had closed at 12:30. I went to use the ATM instead. My card was again rejected. I looked at which cards they accepted. It was a Plus ATM.

It was about to go down. I immediately called Visa as I was standing outside the ATM. The person I spoke with said they didn't know what was wrong with my account, and because my credit union has a certain agreement with Visa, he wasn't able to view specific details of my account because it had not been flagged.

So I called my credit union. The same thing was established - my account had not been flagged. In fact, it hadn't even been "used" since July 13, which I think was when I bought a purse and dress at the London H&M.

That meant that something was wrong with the card itself, because it wasn't even able to register on machines to dial to Visa to access my account.

It had somehow been demagnetized.

I cried. The woman told me not to worry - that I should be able to go to a bank, or any merchant, and just tell them to key the number in manually.

It was Saturday. I had £25. No bank was open until Monday.

After I assembled myself, my room mates and I went to Portobello Road, a really cool outdoor market in Notting Hill. I loved it there - it was probably my favorite part of London so far. It was kind of sad not being able to buy anything that I liked, but I survived. Instead, I opted for a £2 cupcake at a shop that had been highly recommended to us, called Hummingbird's. I don't regret it. It was awesome.

That night, we had planned to go to Fabric, a very popular nightclub. I thought the ticket would be £10. It was £16 when we got to the door. I didn't buy drinks or anything. (I'll save the story of Fabric for another blog entry.)

So, by Sunday, I was left with about £5. (These numbers are approximate... my memory is not perfect.) Meanwhile, a week had gone by. I had no food left. That morning, I went to Budgens to buy peanut butter, bread, and custard cookies to last me until at least the next day, when I'd be able to get cash at the bank. Hopefully.

I went to my internship and spent another £2 on a ticket to get to Morden. I had less than a pound left. I went to the bank next door to Crimestoppers and they told me they were unable to manually key in the number.

What?

Luckily, the saga is almost over. I continued eating peanut butter sandwiches, although I'd run out of jelly. Meanwhile, several people (Erik and my dad) were devising rescue strategies.

Finally, a breakthrough came this morning.

Except that first, my dad valiantly tried to send money through PayPal. But then we found out it would have to wait 5 days to be shipped - the instant debit card option obviously would not work.

I went to the change bureau near CAPA and told the woman what happened.

"How many ATMs have you tried, ma'am?" she asked. "Just one?"

I informed her that I'd tried several.

"Well, I'm not allowed to key in the numbers myself," she said. "Not even my manager can do that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not allowed."

And then I started to cry. I swear I didn't try. I'd cried a couple times before. Let's review - I hadn't been able to use my card in 9 days. I had 94 pence. Everyone seemed unable to help me. As I said before - lies, deceit. Bureaucratic red tape.

"Oh, no, don't cry!"

This woman turned to be the most helpful person I had come across in Britain. She lent me 7 pounds and told me to call a family member to have them wire the money through Western Union, and that I could pick it up there after I went back to the flat and got my passport for identification. My dad wired me 100 pounds to hold me over until he can ship my card. He was able to do it online.

Did I feel a little silly for not realizing there was a Western Union service? Yes. Did I care? Not really. Relief is a beautiful thing.

Special thanks to my dad, my boyfriend, room mates and the Bureau de Change woman for the advice and consulation.