A couple of days ago, a notification flitted across my phone’s screen: “$99 charge from Apple on your Chase Sapphire Reserve card”. At least that’s what I thought it said – it vanished quickly and I couldn’t get it back.

This morning, I looked at the credit card online and, sure enough, there was a $99 charge from “APPLE.COM/US” – but neither Diane nor I could figure out what it could be. And neither of us had any email from Apple about a $99 charge, and looking at our Apple accounts didn’t enlighten us.

This afternoon, I chatted with Apple Support about the charge – the rep couldn’t figure it out, either, and told me to call their account support team. After 20 minutes or so on hold (props to Apple for giving me a choice of what kind of hold music to play and offering silence as an option), I was talking with a rep who looked at all of our accounts and didn’t see any $99 transactions. He told me to call Chase.

I didn’t want to call Chase – their website has been warning about LONG hold times – but I had no alternative. After going through the automated attendant and refusing to take the hint to go online, I had to wait at least 5 seconds before being connected to a human being – outrageous! She transferred me to the fraud team, and now I have a new card on its way to me.

I don’t understand how someone could fraudulently create a charge claiming to be Apple and get away with it (and the cash), but I guess it’s not my problem any more.

In more cheerful news, we watched the first two episodes of City Lights Theatre’s production of “From the Files of Denmark Metro”, a comedy/mystery set around the events in Hamlet – all of the actors are safely sheltered in their own homes and interacting over the Internet. It’s funny, and they’ve come up with some interesting ways of dealing with props. The final episode will be live tomorrow night on Facebook (you can watch the first two episodes on YouTube and they’ll add the final one to that page, too). Recommended.

We talked to Jeff this morning and played online trivia (courtesy of the Santa Clara City Library) with some of our usual trivia team tonight. Those were the high points of the day.

We also got Diane’s car smogged so we could renew the registration; it was pretty painless and nearly contact-free (I almost picked up the pen attached to the request form but realized what I was doing and used my own pen instead). And we got to walk while the car was being checked.

Today makes thirty-seven consecutive days I’ve posted to this blog; I thought that might be my record but it’s not even close – I hit 83 consecutive days in 2000 (it would have been 95 days if I hadn’t joined in the “Day without Weblogs” effort for World AIDS Day that year).

I intend to blog (even if there’s not much to say) daily during the Shelter-in-Place order here; I hope I don’t break my record!