Christmas ingredients:  (1) eleven-foot fir (yes, eleven), 1,900 lights (keep reading), lovely gold sheer ribbon, several decades of ornaments from around the world, a few birds nests and 1/2 pound of flour.  Yes, you heard it right, flour.

After strategically stringing the 19 strands and neurotically flowing ribbon in an ever-so-festive manner, I hung the ornaments and faux birds on the branches.  The tree was missing something…. ah, yes… the look of a freshly-fallen snowfall on its limbs. 

I’ve never been one for ‘going green’, but this year, I wasn’t thrilled about buying bags of plastic ‘faux snow’ to sprinkle on the branches and subsequently for my less-than-brilliant cat to probably consume (it’s not the consumption, it’s how it comes out in the end…) So, while looking through my cabinets, I had a brilliant idea: I could sift flour onto the branches and give it the “Christmas in New England’ look AND it would be feline-friendly, since I know he wouldn’t attempt to eat it.   It came out stunning (at least in my mind):
 

The final product, ‘sans flour’. Note the extensive collection of Harrod’s Bears
The ‘eco-friendly’ tree, adorned with Gold Medal (flour)

What I was quickly reminded of from my thousands of hours watching cooking shows is that when one needs to thicken a sauce they add flour. In the case of a living Christmas tree, when one adds flour as a decorative accoutrement,  it has this tendency to suck all of the moisture out of the needles, leaving one with a petrified evergreen that drops needles like I drop hair off my head.

The final event in this debacle was trying to extricate this monstrosity from the great room post-holidays.  Flour, unlike the plastic snowflake product, seems to become airborne, creating a dust storm that rivals the plains of Kansas.  After 6 hours of sawing, throwing, sweeping, vacuuming, vacuuming and vacuuming, we managed to get to the dusting component of the holiday decorative disaster.  It’s nice to see the hardwood floors again.

Wachovia is dead.  Hopefully they did a good job with the embalming fluid.

My cheer (minus the pom poms):  Wachovia to Wells Fargo, W-O-W!

Never one not to jump in and help the host, De Palma showed his finely tuned catering skills by creating the platters for one event at Mainestreet Ogunquit, in beautiful Ogunquit Maine.

Why do I use such harsh words about an entity that I have fondly described as “making JPMorgan Chase look like a community bank’?

The story starts at the need to hold my high school graduating class 25th reunion. After steering committee conference calls, a survey out to classmates and the selection of an online event registration system (Eventbrite won out over Eventbee), it was determined that we needed a PayPal account to take in all of those electronic payments that would be created during the registration process for our 25th reunion soiree.  So, our plan of attack was IRS Tax ID, bank account at TD BankNorth and finally, the PayPal account.  I thought the last of those options would be the easiest.  Then again, I also thought that Darren Stevens on Bewitched was straight.

Having opened a few PayPal accounts in my day, I knew to have my ducks lined up in a row. I had Tax ID, address, bank account info, etc. The challenge started when one is forced to categorize themselves as an entity and  in a pseudo-MCC exercise, but beware, instead of the thousands of MCCs, PayPal has like 22 categories – and if you don’t select the right one, the wrath of Meg Whitman comes down upon you.

When looking at the five choices to start with, I knew that we were not incorporated, we certainly were not a Government Entity, and the Tax ID did not correlate to Individual, Sole Proprietorship or Partnership, so I selected Non-Profit Organization (which theoretically, we are, according to IRS rules we don’t have to file a tax return unless our revenues are above $25,000).

The next step in the “Quest for Confusion” was to select the category, of which PayPal presented us with 27 (TWENTY-SEVEN) options.  Twenty-seven.  Vingt-sept, if you’re in Paris. 

 So, of the 27 categories, I found no ‘club’, no ‘social organization’, nothing.  I again was forced to select “Nonprofit”.  Now, I wasn’t looking for a special rate because of this ‘nonprofit’ status (which apparently is 2.3% instead of the standard 2.9%), I just had no other selection as an option.  So that’s when the fun began:

Dear Noble 1985 Alumni Club,
As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in the PayPal system. During a recent screening, we noticed an issue regarding your account. PayPal requires accounts within the charity / non profit category to provide us with some additional information regarding their organization. Upon a recent review, your account was identified as falling within this classification. Until we can collect this information, your access to sensitive account features will be limited.  Please take a moment to provide us with this information so that we can restore your access as soon as possible.

After providing a bunch of documentation and requesting that they disregard the nonprofit designation, I received another mainframe-generated email:

Hello Noble 1985 Alumni Club,
We are writing to you in regards to your PayPal Account.  PayPal appreciates that you have chosen us to accept payments for your organization.  As part of PayPals Compliance Program, we request that entities wishing to accept donations on behalf of a charity or other non-profit organization provide evidence of their legitimacy.  Please provide the following information:

1.  Evidence of tax-exempt status and/or registration with any applicable regulatory bodies governing your jurisdiction.
2.  A valid URL for the organization
3.  A brief organizational summary or Mission Statement.

My response to PayPal (showing the stress of a class reunion only a month and a half away):

Noble High School 1985 Social Club requests that you change our status (or request) from non-profit to ‘profit’ so that we may begin accepting payments through PayPal.  We will not be pursuing a 501(c)3 designation at this time due to the expense and time constraints. We are simply an organization that is arranging a 25^th class reunion.  Could you please remove the limitations on this account so that we can move forward.  Your bureaucracy makes Chase look like a community bank.

Regards,
Noble HS 1985 Social Club

FYI, apparently when you compare PayPal to the most hated bank in the country, they lift your limitations within 24 hours. So for those of you reuniting in the future and looking to accept electronic payments, it’s good to use the terms “Bureaucracy” and “Chase” to get things done in PayPal-land.

So, be warned, I own this domain and this blog. This will be rated PG-13.  Adult Language.  No Nudity (sorry, I know there are a few out there that would like to see me disrobe, but I save that for the one that provides me with the American Express Black Card).

Also, be warned, your organization may be pointed out. I won’t tell you if you’re baby is ugly, but I will tell you where your product and service may suck wind. I may love you, but this is the media and my First Amendment right (or is that the Second Amendment?) to make note where things are falling off in payments and banking-land.  I’m the CEO, I don’t have to be political.  I won’t fire myself. I am Baby-Doc-De Palma for life.

And as a teaser for you to come back tomorrow, our first blog-lashing goes to PayPal…  oooh, juicy already!

Led by Facebook, Twitter, Global Time Spent on Social Media Sites up 82% Year over Year | Nielsen Wire.

The foreclosure crisis is far from over, according to RealtyTrac’s Rick Sharga. The company will release its year-end report on Thursday showing foreclosures rose 20% over the previous year. He talks with Dawn Wotapka about some trouble spots and the outlook for 2010.