It's tomorrow. I've had my sleep. I've been to work. (Fairly frantic day at work trying to race through a two day First Aid course in eight hours, but we managed). I'm home now. And I'm not a happy boy. :(

Today, I am supposed to be picking up my PSP. Those more observant among you will note the "supposed to be" part of that last sentence and realise that things have not gone to plan. I'm annoyed, and mainly at myself more than anything else...

Recently at work, I decided to jump on the Salary Sacrifice bandwagon with the rest of the staff. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it involves putting aside some of your income into another account, and only paying tax on the remainder of your income. As such, you pay a lesser amount of tax and have a greater disposable income. Now because my workplace (St. John) is a not-for-profit, charity organization, I don't have to pay any sort of fringe benefits tax on the money put aside. (This is a good thing, of course. :))

Now the company that takes care of the money takes their cut from the funds set aside, and put the rest onto a debit card. This card can then be used to purchase various goods, but the money cannot be drawn out as cash. The fee isn't huge, as it works out to a couple of hundred dollars each year. Sounds like a pretty good deal, right? And it is, don't get me wrong.

BUT... (There's always a BUT, isn't there? :()

The problem is that I haven't quite managed to finish paying off the PSP and Games. Usually, I'm pretty good with this sort of thing. Last couple of weeks have been a bit complicated however, and I haven't managed to put aside as much money to completely pay them off. Now this wasn't a big deal, as I have this nice sum of money sitting off to one side, ready to be used to sort things out, right? All I had to do was use some of the funds from my new-fangled card, and it would be all done and dusted...

The problem is that to use the debit card, you actually have to have it in your possession. And for some reason, mine hasn't arrived yet. Now, I put the paperwork in a good couple of weeks ago, and it was all processed - the money came out of my pay and was transferred to my new debit account. I've just been waiting for the past two weeks for the actual card to arrive. To top it off, I checked my snail mail when I got home today, and found a lovely thick envelope from the bank involved with all of this business. So I got a bit excited and was getting ready to race out and pick up the PSP.

Then I opened the envelope. What I found was a thick stack of pamphlettes and information booklets, explaining all the requirements for the use of my card, the fees involved, and other such legal mumbo-jumbo. But no card. There was however, a letter explaining that my card should arrive within five working days of receiving this envelope, and that should it not arrive I should contact them forthwith. But no card. :(

So now I'm sitting here, bashing away at the keyboard - annoyed at myself. It's not that big a deal, really - all I have to do is wait another couple of days until the card arrives, and pick up the PSP at that point. The annoying thing is that my next available time to go anywhere NEAR my local Gaming store is on Monday. So even if the card arrives tomorrow, I still can't pick up the console. Tonight was the planned night, as it's late-night shopping here in Adelaide.

So I just have to be patient. And I HATE having to be patient about stuff. Patience is something I do particularly badly, especially when I kinda want something. And I gotta admit, I was REALLY looking forward to checking out Lumines and Metal Gear Acid tonight. Man, I sound like a five year old, don't I? Wait a couple of minutes and I'll start holding my breath, or I'll throw myself onto the floor and kick and scream until I get my way... *sigh*

I'm annoyed. I should go get some dinner now before I rant and rave any more than I already have. OK, done now. Time to take a deep, cleansing breath and move on to some other stuff for the evening.

Rant over. Hope your day is going better than mine, people. More another time...