Well, THAT was embarrassing.

Today was supposed to just be a nice, boring Monday, and instead the afternoon turned into a big, fat, embarrassing mess. And it was all my fuckin' fault.

The world is full of young women like myself, striding through corporate America with our heads held high and our eyes set forward. We're going to succeed. We're independent. We've got our shit TOGETHER.

Except me, who is always making some ridiculous and puerile mistake like forgetting her car insurance payment will be auto-drafted from her checking account on a certain date, so she should make sure there's enough funds to cover the payment - and NOT write an $85 check to the eye doctor.

Right.

So, I scrambled to fix it. Called the eye doctor. Closed on Mondays. Awesome.

Called my insurance broker. Got the voicemail. Cool.

Called eye doctor back. Left long, rambling message about needing to stop payment on check and that I wanted to pay by Amex. Began stringing nonsensical sentences together. Hung up, feeling even stupider. Great.

Called bank to see what stopping a check would entail. A $25 fee, to be drafted from my account. (At which point, I wondered: Would they charge me an overdraft fee for defaulting on the stop check fee, which was all to avoid the $35 overdraft fee to begin with?)

What happened here? Since I moved to Connecticut and began actually making a decent salary, I've been nearly on top of my game! I've begin organizing and shredding and all bills get paid on TIME ... my credit score even went up. Huzzah. A whole lotta good THAT does me when I can't even fucking balance my checkbook.

I blame online banking and a residual need to do things the old-fashioned way (i.e. written checks, instead of online payments). And also on my being a complete retard.

So, after exhausting all other options (and of course, having to go into yet another pointless meeting beforehand, so I looked all anxious and so NOT pulled together), I had no other choice but to do the thing I have SWORN never to do.

I had to ask my boyfriend if I could borrow the money.

Guys, for real. What is more mortifying than admitting to yourself and someone you truly respect that you can't even organize your bills? You can't even pay your fuckin' car insurance without having some sort of "Nikki Issue"?

Naturally, my man jumped to help. But, because he is the way he is, I had to endure his "I'm not happy" and his "You've got to be more organized" speeches (via IM, which is WICKED super awesome-o, because you know THAT was the abridged version, since he didn't want to type everything he wanted to say).

The end result of this nonsense?

I end up looking like the jack ass that I am. To my new eye doctor (whom I'm going to have to call again tomorrow, to explain that train wreck of a voice mail); to my insurance broker, whose voice betrayed a note of smugness at my inability to be on top of these kinds of things; and worst of all, to my boyfriend, M - whose opinion of me matters more than anyone else and whose disappointment in me is worse than anything.

*Sigh*

Now, instead of going right home to enjoy my afternoon, I have to go to M's office and take $70 from him (endure more "you've got to me more responsible" chat), go to the bank and deposit the money, and then sit there stewing.

That is, of course, until he comes home. At which point, he'll have had more opportunity to get mad at me for being irresponsible (you can't blame the guy ... we ARE talking about buying a house together in the near future ... my obvious inability to handle money is probably not a big confidence booster that I'll be a good partner, either), and more of an opportunity to hone his talk about the importance of overdraft protection and getting organized and paying bills in a responsible manner ... shit I should all fuckin' know by now, but look who you're talkin' to.

Honestly, I am really so upset with myself for this. What am I? Still in college? I'll never be good with money and I'll never be free from this mental block I have against being organized (except at work, where I am organized to a fault).

So embarrassed. What an awesome kick-off to the week, eh?