One fine morning I awoke to the ghastly and rude shock of becoming a victim of identity theft. My credit card number had been stolen, and of course the thief already had procured his spoils before he finally discovered that the card had been maxed out when he tried to fill gas in his car(details courtesy of Citibank who had no idea about what was happening until I alerted them to it, so much for ID protection!). So with my card becoming disfunct I now had to purely rely on my cash resources (which I didnt have much of now that I had to buy my ticket to India with cash and no credit). Shaken but not stirred I put this episode behind me and continued to live life as though all was fine, and then came the fateful day when one of my dad's client sends me a chq as per my dad's instructions (since I had asked my dad for money). Delighted with my new found wealth I deposit the check only to find out after 4 days that both me and my dad had been had.....the check was a counterfeit!!! Citibank promptly shut down my account and refunded the rest of my balance to me (all of $28). Now I was thoroughly shattered and upto my neck in frustration....everything seemed to be falling apart, I gave up all hope and sat there a dejected man. My only shimmer of happiness was that I would be going back home on the 13th of July....or so I thought! July 8th, I receive a call from my girlfriend who wants my passport number as she is filling out our change of address forms (I recently moved to a new place), I look for my passport and cant find it, panic stricken I continue to look but its no use...the house is turned upside down but there is no trace of my passport. I knew this was it, my life was coming to an end. with all hopes lost I went to bed as a defeated man, and within my head I was thinking about my lost trip to India, a possible decline for a new Visa to come back to USA and all sorts of things, and there was no hope....I could have died (but instead I just yawned and went to bed...no use staying up, right???). Come morning my girlfriend frantically tries to wake me up....she had found the passport...there was no better news that I could have heard that day. Soon enough I also had refund checks from school which put some money on my pockets....so after one month of anguish things finally started to fall in place.....but this is one experience I would never want to relive...this was by far the worst month ever in my life!!!
