Atomictumor

The medical bills have been good to me, and I’ve been careful to keep up with them.  In fact, the only thing thats come out of pocket out of this whole thing is about $20 or so.

In the week or two before BJ got really sick, she was having some pelvic pain.  Ultimately, in hindsight, its that kidney infection, but we didn’t know that at the time.

She went to the OB/GYN for a regular checkup kinda thing, and to talk about it (she was always bad about going for checkups, and this was the first time she’d be in since Pigpen was born).  She came home completely pissed, because the doc evidently didn’t have any bedside manner, and made it known to her that her troubles were caused by being overweight, and that she’d never keep a husband if she didn’t lose some pounds.

Gee, thanks Doc.

Today I got a letter from them, the first one that I’ve received.  It shows she paid a $15 copayment, but that we owed $3.74.  It also had a note in it that told me that they’ve been trying to collect this pocket change for some time, and that I have 10 days to pay before they lay it on the collectors.

Course, I called today to pay over the phone, and they’re closed.  So I wrote them a letter.

I was pissed when I wrote it, and didn’t save it to share with you people, but in essence it mentions the fact that BJ, now dead, went to the hospital no more than 2 weeks after seeing their office, that the hospital was in communication with the OBGYN clinic to see if they could shed any light on the mysterious nature of their illness, that I haven’t gotten shit from them as far as payments, and that sending a collection notice for pocket change is deplorable.

And it is.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I start to think “Hey.  I bet a lawyer could get me some money over this.”

But that’d be wrong.

Man, oh man, I hate customer service.

Ironically, because I do phone tech support for a living, and am “the other guy on the line” at least a dozen times a day for the past, oh, seven years.  Even more ironically, I detest being on the phone.  I don’t mind so much when its in a professional capacity, but I reeeeeally hate being the normal guy having to talk with the professionals, because I know their tricks, their tone of voices, I know what they’re typing, and what kind of software they’re typing it into.  I know their “escalation” line is really just a guy getting $.50 more an hour who’s been there for a month, and is on average about one or two months from quitting in disgust.

I’d rather go to the dentist.

So, imagine my delight when I got something in the mail from Sprint, telling me that what I thought the deal between me and them were, isn’t really the deal at all.

Lemme explain:

So, around this time in 2005 we decided to get a new cellphone contract.  For the first time, we wanted to have a his/hers cellphone arrangement, to do away with that tricky text message over the internet business when we wanted to communicate (and the cell was our only line).  We found an affordable plan from Nextel, with two new phones.  I did a cursory bit of research, and we bought them.

3 months later, Sprint bought Nextel.  Or merged.  Or whatever.  Bottom line is, those friendly Nextel people are now Sprint people, and after 3 weeks of trying, I gave up on trying to make them commit to a promise to have 10 bucks a month off for the first 3 months, like their ad said.  They had some loophole, whatever.  10 bucks.  I get paid more than that an hour, so its difficult to justify spending that much time on the phone trying to save it.

However, we now knew who we were dealing with.

So, time goes by, and its not a horrible plan, but a two year contract is a long time when theres a $250/line termination fee.  Then BJ dies, and well, I only need one phone.  I wanted to get on Verizion for various reasons, so I started talking to Sprint about what my options were.  Since both lines were in my name, they weren’t jumping on the idea that BJ’s death = not needing a line = not having to pay a termination fee, and I can sorta understand it.  They were kind enough, however, to limit my lines to 5 bucks a month each, with no phone access.  So, I’m paying 10 bucks a month to ride out the contract.

Whatever.

Found out today, tho, through a nice colorful brochure sent out by Sprint, that the 5 bucks a month deal is a ’seasonal pause’, and that my contract still has the same 6 or 7 months left on it, that I’ll have to pay to get out from underneath these bastards.

Nice.

So, not sure where to proceed.  I should lower myself to calling these jackels and trying to score a shutdown of BJ’s phone, and then just pay mine off.  That’d be the smart option, as I’m well aware, but dammit, I hate giving these people a bone.

What I want to do is change my name to Rodrigo Cantilever Jones, dye my hair, and never pay the bastards.

Grr.  Customer service.

Last night, the Oak Ridge school board received next years budget prepared by Dr. Bailey, the superintendent, and it looks like its going to be a throwback to last years brouhaha which resulted in us putting bumper stickers all over town trying to protest the backwards nature of people determined to keep city expenditures low no matter what the cost is to the citizens of the town.

Last year, we bent over backwards trying to get people to recognize the simple fact that the reputation of the school system is a huge draw for people moving in, and gutting the schools is going to do some serious harm to the city.  It came down that the biggest cut would be the busses, and thoughts of elementary school kids walking a mile to the schoolhouse through barking dogs, meth addicts, and the projects chilled me.  I throught for sure we were going to have stories of some poor bastard of a 1st grader, run down by some high school kid on her cellphone, because neither of them could ride the bus.

But you know what?  It never happened.

Well, several things never happened.  While we got bumper stickers all over cars, we never had a chance to really bring the movement to a head, for various reasons.  We were all busy. When the first day of school came and went, and then the 30th, we realized that hey, it sucks, but its working out.

We were still fiddling with it when GAC got sick, and it became utterly unimportant, and finally we ended up losing the website when the ‘tumor moved to its hew host, and I never bothered salvaging the stuff.  If you hit the link to supportoakridgeschools.com now, you end up with a placeholder.

Whats the point, AT?

Well, the point is, its happening again.  Drivers education classes are out the window apparently, according to Netmom, because of an unfunded mandate by the state requiring that the schools hire a “wellness coordinator” to make sure that Tennessee apparently won’t produce fat lazy kids anymore.  Woot.  Bring on the healthy, active kids who run over you while trying to get to that frisbee golf game.

But, I’ve been down that road before, and I don’t know that I’m entirely eager to drive down it again (no matter how much instructional training the kids may or may not have had), because I feel like no matter how hard you try, and no matter what you say, or how much sense you make, you’re still dealing with the same hard headed dumbasses who disagree with you just because they don’t have anything better to do.

Which is still a huge minority to the vast amounts of people who just don’t give a damn.  They complain because they have to send the kids to school, and they say they want some more shopping in town, but they don’t think the city should build the place.  Yes, somebody has told me that.  And you know what?  I didn’t have the patience to set her straight.  The majority of people in this town will believe anything they’re told about local issues because they just don’t care about it.  What happens in town, they figure, is not as important as what happens nationally, or on TV.

Maybe I’m just cynical in my dotage, or I just have a defeatist attitude, or didn’t eat my Wheaties this morning, but I’m sick of dealing with people who just don’t try to care.

Ironic, huh?

I like technology, because sometimes it can capture certain nuances that reality misses.

For example, during the show last night, it was so loud that the communications with MastaG were done with the writing pad on my phone. I have attached these communications as they appeared, to tell you how it went.

(BTW, Of Montreal rocks, and my ears still ring. His are reportedly fine, so I guess I’m getting old)

1.

I’m not sure what the origin of this particular piece is, but I feel it speaks for itself.

2.

This would be his retaliation. Note how long his arms are as they choke me, while mine are so little.

3.

More of MastaG’s retaliation, but I’m not sure whats going on. Apparently the phone is, because it put that little square around what appears to be the action.

This was all done while we were waiting for Loney, Dear, the opening band, to start. We got there purposefully late, because we’d heard some of their music and didn’t really dig it, but they must have known that, and started late. Like, 45 minutes late. As in, they were going on stage as we arrived, expecting to see Of Montreal. At least we got a nice spot at the front, stage right, but behind all of the teenagers crowding the middle of the stage. Teenagers, for the most part, are to be avoided.

G was standing on a chair that the nice lady working the sound board behind us offered to him so he could see. However, as soon as Of Montreal started, he started sagging.

4.

Yes, they just started, have played a few songs, and G is wanting to go. They started out playing the first 5 or 6 songs of their new record straight through, which is always entertaining. One of the problems, however, with seeing them is that on most of their new songs the drums are preprogrammed, which means no deviations in speed. Its a slightly different loop than whats in the song, which is nice, but one of the joys of seeing some bands like the White Stripes or Wilco is seeing what they do to the songs live, after playing them over and over again.

I digress, the point here is that MastaG was asking to go. I voiced a reply.

5.

Yes, yes, I called my son a dumbass. He’s used to it, so don’t go calling child and family services on me. Anyway, it didn’t really matter, because he took the phone back and said:

6.

Yes, the addition of the frowny faces. In case you can’t tell, this is “After this can we go”. Now, after this can be construed many ways, and I like those kind of loopholes in my parenting. After this song? After the show? After the month/year? After the presidential term?

My reply was simple.

7.

Yes, so simple that once again, the phone boxed it. I was curious to see the response. I was prepared to go, but I wasn’t going to make it easy on the boy.

8.

Ah, a retreat. He was still standing on the seat. He wasn’t dancing, like I was, but ol’MastaGs not a dancer. He’s the stoic type that watches a show with his arms crossed, as if dubious about this performance that he spent several dollars on. These people expect entertainment, and they’ll wait until the show’s over to reflect on it and make sure that, yes, they were indeed entertained. Afterwards they’ll tell their friends about the kickass show they saw, but nobody ever mentions the fact that they were auditing the show.

Ahh, kids.

Again, I digress. Now, I gave G a few minutes, and then handed this over.

9.

Note the smiley face. Yes, this was a friendly message. I like to keep em off guard.

10.

Yep. Off guard.

11.

Now, I couldn’t yell, but I felt that this response did the job. MastaG responded with an essay.

12.

Actually, OK this last one was a joint effort. He’s tired and croup? Finally, I resorted to the good old second grade “circle yes or no”. He started to write “what” when I took it away to clarify things.

13.

Tried the circle thing again, and got a percentage answer. I still don’t know how to take this, so I just let it rest for a bit.

14.

We had made an agreement to wait until they played “Soul Power”, one of his favorite songs, but about an hour and a half into the concert, they hadn’t done so. We agreed that after this song, we’d take off (thats the K of agreement that I wrote, in case you’re not sure).

15.

And then he took it back. My frantic urge to shake him like a british nanny was reflected in my hasty reply.

16.

“Dude, just tell me when to go”.

Indeed.

By the time I handed this to G, they were bowing out. We ended up staying for the encore, where, yes, they DID play Soul Power, along with an excellent cover of Prince’s Raspberry Beret.

Of Montreal rocks. They switch back and forth, between life drums and electric guitars, to keyboards and techno drums, but its all a damn fine show.

We got home around 1, where I fell asleep, ironically, while he watched TV. What a dork.

Have you noticed how WETP, the local PBS station, changes their programing schedule during the fund-raising drives? It drives me nuts. Why do they do that? They bring out the most geezerfied set of shows I’ve ever seen.

Well I wrote them tonight asking why they insist on monkeying around.

Let’s see what they say to that.