Day 133: Snooping Around

Before this deployment, I was in charge of the household finances. Okay, who am I kidding, Sue was in charge--she did the spending and I made sure the bills were paid on time. Now that I am gone, she is still in charge. However, now she has the added responsibility of paying the bills, balancing the checkbook and the making sure we keep to the budget. Even though she is running the show (and let me mention that she is doing a GREAT job), I still like to snoop around every once in awhile. So the other day I noticed some PayPal payments made from our checking account (for those of you who aren’t familiar, PayPal is a more secure way to make online purchases). I figured she was probably buying something to send to her lonely husband in Afghanistan. I was curious, so I kept snooping. I got online, went to PayPal.com, typed in her username and password, and hit ENTER. As I waited for my very slow internet connection to connect, I imaged all the things she could be buying for me. I was like the little kid who sneaks into their parents closet a few weeks before Christmas, looking for “surprises.” Well, when the internet finally connected, the following error showed up on my screen:

Error 3028. You have accessed your account from a sanctioned country. Per international sanctions regulations, you are not authorized to access the PayPal system. For more information about your PayPal account status, contact complianceverifications@paypal.com.

A sanctioned country! How can that be? Sanctions were in place in Afghanistan when the Taliban were in power but we kicked them out 7 years ago. Don’t they realize they are interfering with my constitutional right as a husband to log into my wife’s private information? So thanks to international sanctions, Sue’s secret purchases are still a mystery to me...unless of course I sneak into her email.