I'm a sucker for the funny pages. Lately, some haven't been so funny.

Still pondering whether the punchline of a certain cartoon is even possible. Bum on the street panhandling for change says he used to steal gas out of people's cars by switching hoses at the gas pump. "A" - I don't understand why that's funny and "B" - I don't think pump hoses can even be switched in mid-fill.

Do gas pump hoses stretch farther than the car parked right next to them? And if so, how is it possible to make said switch without the purchaser realizing his hose is pumping gas into someone else's car?

Technicalities, shmecknicalities. Don't bore us with the details, right?

Except when the details matter.

Take for instance my long-standing relationship with Chase Bank. I've been loyal to their "Toys R Us" credit card for the past eight years. Racking up tons of merchant fees and faithfully paying my statements on time, you'd think they'd cut me a break on a simple misunderstanding. But no such luck. Now, the devil in the details is setting me back quite a pretty penny.

I should have known better. Having always paid my balance on time, the top interest rate on credit financing never much mattered. Outrageous surcharges be damned, I threw caution to the wind. In the eight years I wheeled and dealed with its bank money, Chase never made a penny off me.

My, how times have changed. Even corporate conglomerates must be feeling the heat of a failing economy. How else to explain the nasty reaction of Chase's customer service representative, the manager no less, stationed in Springfield, Missouri?

In the past, they would have waved all charges on my one day late payment and offered an incentive to enroll in their credit protection program. Today, they cooly fleeced me of a couple hundred dollars and didn't blink an eye. Yes, I promptly closed the account, but it didn't matter. Dear Marsha in Springfield had no sympathy whatsoever.

Customers with good payment histories needn't pay 21% interest financing. Most banks are happy to offer rates as low as 10% to 12% to their good customers. Some friends tell me they've negotiated rates as low as nine. Had I negotiated a lower rate earlier, my simple misunderstanding wouldn't have been such an expensive lesson in opening mail as it arrives. Then, finding an unopened statement in my pile of "to file" wouldn't have been so painful.

Lesson learned. Read the fine print. In the case of a simple misunderstanding, interest rates matter plenty.