Rick MacLean

I’m now Sir Rick. It only cost me $90.85.

Thank three pairs of socks. “Rick,” Beautiful Wife called from her home office. I was working on some chicken wings. I pretended I hadn’t heard her. It works occasionally.

“Rick.” Clearly it wasn’t going to work this time. “Did you spend $90.85 on something on amazon. ca?”

That thumb-drive sized antenna for my GPS watch? Yes, but that was only $20. Two books about famous legal cases in the United States? They were $8 each.

“No,” I said with a hint of howcould-you-think-such-a-thing in my answer.

BW stepped out of her home office and into the kitchen.

“Well, there’s a charge on our credit card for $90.85 and I have no idea what’s it’s for. All it says is amazon.ca and something called pribc.”

“No idea,” I answered, longing to put the chicken wings out of their misery.

“Well, someone is going to have to call the credit card company and find out what’s going on.”

I knew what that meant. I called the 1-800 number and was reminded how important my call was to them. Minutes later a vaguely human, female voice came on the line. She banged my credit card number into her computer and answered my query briskly.

No one had hacked the card, something that had happened a few years ago. (I hope they enjoyed the $200-plus in tickets to Marineland in Ontario they