I was visiting Lehigh University not long ago and bought my wife a little something while I was there. It wasn’t elaborate, just a little necklace to surprise her when I got back. But that evening, back at my hotel, just before leaving for my final dinner, I got a phone call from home: my wife was wanting to confirm whether I’d made a purchase earlier that day, since the service our credit union uses had contacted her about an unusual purchase.
She knew the amount because they knew the amount and they knew the amount because I’d never before spend X number of dollars in Bethlehem PA. That’s why the automated fraud protection levers were pulled and my card was yanked.
So much for the surprise. Continue reading “The Bank Dick”
There are few more relevant books for those interested in how systems of representation — in the most mundane and thus often unnoticed places — enable historical happenstance to be portrayed/perceived as timeless necessity than