That's It - I Draw the Line - It's Just Too Hard

I've decided Davan can't move away to Montreal.  Sure, the fact that my heart breaks every time I really think about it is a good reason for this, but that's not why.  No, indeed.

The reason?  It took me a good 5 hours of research and leg work plus a grand total of $85 to figure out a way to pay the $50 CND application fee.

They insisted that it be in Canadian dollars, so I couldn't do a money order from the post office.  They will make money orders for some other countries and Canada is one of them, but only in American dollars, so that was a no go.

I did a bunch of research on line, discovering that most banks won't do checks for Canadian dollars, but when I went to our local branch, I found out that Bank of America will do Canadian registered checks.  For a paltry $35 and a few days wait.  Okay, that was an option, but not my top choice.

The school said they'd accept wires, so I did some looking into that.  I almost went with Western Union, but then discovered that my credit union, On Point, does them.  So, I went in to a branch.  And waited for someone to help me.  For a while.  Waiting.  I eventually got called to a desk.  Yay - progress. (And, really, it wasn't that long, but there was no one in front of me or being helped, making the wait seem long.)

Then, things went awry.  There was a certain number I needed that wasn't provided to me.  I had no way to produce said number.  The On Point employee was actually very helpful.  We went online and found the bank we were transferring money to.  We couldn't find the number on their web site.  We called them.  They gave us the number for the wrong branch.  We figured that out.  Turns out, I did have the number, but it was called something else.  This whole process?  Took about an hour.  It was crazy.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I discovered that this adventure was going to cost me a $25 fee.  Okay, then.  I was already paying an extra $10 for the "convenience" of doing a wire transfer rather than a registered check or money order.  Great.

When I asked for proof of the transaction, there was another scramble.  This was required by the school, but there isn't really such a piece of paper.  I ended up with a copy of the wire transfer authorization (gee, I sure hope they don't submit it again and again and again) and a phone call giving me a conformation number, which I've written across the bottom of my wire transfer authorization.

I'm now left with the sincerer hope that the National Circus School is satisfied with all of that.

Oh, and the kicker?  I was further exploring my credit union's web site while waiting to see if the money posted (there was some doubt still about our numbers), when I came across their fee page.  For a $15 fee, I could have gotten a check in Canadian dollars.  Now, I guess I'm not totally clear if that would have qualified as a "registered check, money order or bank draft", but I'm thinking it would have been a bank draft.  That would have been cheaper and actually what they were looking for.  Sigh.

So, that's it.  She can't go.  I can't handle the pressure of paying.  Not the money part (although that will be ugly), but the actual mechanics of it.  It's all too much.

That's a good reason for dashing all her dreams, right?