Every Silver Lining Has A Dark Cloud

There are two people at work (not any of the people I actually work with, just other people in the big open room that I work in) whose voices drive me up a fucking tree.
In an open space like this where acoustics can cause even a whisper (not any of these obnoxious people ever do whisper) to carry across the room like a shout this would be irritating even if the people in question rarely spoke.
However, these two people are also the most talkative people around. They. Never. Shut. Up.
One of them, a skeletally thin guy with his nasal pseudo-drawl, yammers on about anything, everything, and ultimately nothing, and seems to think that everything he says is endlessly fascinating.
(Rather like a certain Blogger we all know, but at least you don’t have to actually hear me)
The other, a woman who could stand to donate a significant amount of body fat to her skeletal cohort, sounds as if she’s just taken a hit off a joint and is trying to talk while still holding it in…which I can imagine she would do if she were smoking a joint, since, after all, she never shuts up.
In her case, she’s constantly talking about Everquest, which makes the fact that she won’t shut up that much more unpleasant.
Fortunately, neither one of them is here at the moment.
That’s a very good thing, as I’m feeling incredibly irritable.
A few weeks ago I wrote a check that I needed to stop payment on. I went online, put in the payee, the number, and the amount, then wrote a check out to the right payee and mailed it off.
A week later the bank called me and said that they had the check with the number and amount that I’d placed the stop payment order on, but the payee didn’t match.
I realized then that I’d given the wrong check number, and that, in fact, I wanted to stop payment on the check number preceding that.
I thought it was a good thing the bank had called and that it was all cleared up.
Two days ago, I discovered today, the check that I wanted to stop payment on came to the bank and they cashed it.
This put me $300+ in the hole.
The irritating thing is that I was charged a $30 fee for the stop payment request even though they didn’t stop payment on either check. If they would have stopped payment on the wrong one I at least wouldn’t have ended up overdrawn.
(To add insult to injury, I was charged the NSF fee as well)
So I’m pretty irritated. I moved money over from my savings to get my checking out of the hole, and I called the bank who will “investigate,” but the best I’m going to get, I think, is a refund of the two fees, as the payee on the check has the money now, so I’d have to contact them to get it back, which would be another hassle that ultimately probably isn’t worth it.
So basically I’m out an extra $1,100, with the silver lining being that I’ve made a big payment on my second mortgage, but that lining seems rather tarnished.Now both of the talkers are here. Terrific.