Are you kidding me?

Hell isn’t fire and brimstone, people. Hell is bureaucrats and red tape and telephone “customer service” people who don’t listen and couldn’t understand basic concepts if someone shoved it up their asses.
I just spent the better part of 2 hours fighting a disconnect on my electricity. Which is mildly absurd since I’m only about a week late on the bill. AND I’m on a budget, so it’s only $42 anyway. Even in our sometimes dire financial straits, we can usually float that. Know what we can’t float?

$419.36

What. The. Hell.

Back story? Ok.

I ran out of the back door this morning, as the power around my house shut off abruptly. The nice NIPSCO man was standing at the meter, putting the shut off notice on it.

Me: “Oh crap! Why am I getting shut off?!”
Man: “I assume for non-payment.”
Me: “Is there anyway you could be really cool and not shut it off and I’ll go pay it right now?”
Man *eyeballing me*: “Well, I’m not supposed to. But I guess I can. I’ll give you 2 hours. If I haven’t received a call that it’s paid, I’ll be back to shut it off again.”
Me *flutter*: “Ay, ok, no problem. I’ll go in and pay it now! I will need my phone though…” *chuckle*
Man: “Alright. There you go.”

So I dash inside and boot (back up) the computer and jump online to pay the lousy $42. To see the aforementioned and outrageous number on my bill instead. After staring blankly, trying to make sense of such a silly bill, I scooped up the phone to call the obviously high electric company. There’s no way we owe 420 buckaroos, buddy.

Me: “Yes, I’m confused about my bill. I am evidentally scheduled for disconnect today and I’m going to pay it, but the balance can’t be right. I’m on a budget and there’s no way we racked up 420 dollars on a $42/month budget in one month”
Bitch: “Ok, ma’am, I’m looking at your bill and it looks like you owe the final bill from an older account.”
Me: “Final bill? No, I transferred that account back in May. It should have transferred, not closed out…”
Bitch: “Well, we sent you notice that it was happening almost a month ago. Why didn’t you call before now?”
Me *confused*: “Um, well, I didn’t get a notice like that or I would have called b/c that’s not how I set it up… What can I do to fix this?”
Bitch: “Uh, nothing now. *implied “duh”* Maybe if you’d called before today, we could have fixed it or set up a payment plan, but now you have to pay it or be disconnected and charged a gazillion dollars for reconnect and a new deposit of your firstborn child (ok she didn’t say that, but might as well have). Like I said, I don’t know how you didn’t have enough time to take care of this before now”
Me *now irritated as fuck*: “Well, I didn’t exactly realize that there was a problem. I did get a weird bill this month, but because the language of it was all messed up, I assumed there was a typo. Yeah, I should have called to clarify and let ya’ll know about it, but seriously, I didn’t see any reason to be worried about a typo! My bill says that I paid $377 at some point in July (which I didn’t) and then it takes that payment amount and adds it to my budget total. Doesn’t exactly make sense, does it? *silence on her end* But no, I just hadn’t gotten around to calling about what I assumed, due to lack of reason to believe otherwise, was a typo, lady.” (I probably should have let off the attitude, but I was pissed.)
Bitch: “Well, you had plenty of time to call us. There’s no good reason you shouldn’t have…”
Me *cutting her off*: “Yeah, except that it was seemingly harmless and I have 3 kids and not a lot of time on my hands to worry about stupid stuff.”
Bitch: “Anyway, ma’am (progressively shittier tone) there’s nothing we can do for you today except tell you to pay the bill. Can I help you with anything else, ma’am?”

Yeah, you can go to hell. Bitch.

3 more phone calls to NIPSCO to argue things that should have helped my case, but didn’t b/c they all suck goat balls, and I finally had to figure out how to pay something I can not afford. I tried calling my poor beleaguered father, but he’s currently unavailable. So, we direct deposit advanced $8MILLION dollars (ha, yeah right) and I paid the effing electric company. I get done paying it and call them w/ the confirmation code and a different lady tells me.

“Sorry, we can’t guarantee that the disconnect won’t still happen. You should pay with 2 business days to spare to guarantee that. If you do still get disconnected, you’ll have to pay a reconnect fee of 7.4bajillion dollars and a new deposit (where does my OLD deposit go, fuckers?) of 40 sheep and 10 horses and a trunk of ancient pirate treasure.”

Why the hell do we bother? Can we possibly go back to candles? Er, no. Outhouses suck. Nevermind.

Why can’t we have some cool ass co-op electric company like some of the older cities have/had. Where the people you deal with are your neighbors and friends…

The big companies are killing us, people. Between delivery “fees” and transport “fees” and convenience “fees”, the average person pays 30% more for their day to day expenses than is even needed. And I’m not even talking about gas prices; I just mean normal stuff. ATM fees (once a week ATM withdrawal fees can add up to $100-$150 per year). Bill pay fees ($5.95 phone pay fee per month can add up to $72 per year). Seriously, who’s getting rich on us? Why don’t I work for these companies!? 😉 Nah, I’m kidding.

At any rate, I’m waiting on a return call from my father. Hopefully, I can not be too ashamed to ask him if he can loan (yes loan) us a few hundred bucks for a couple weeks. We could NOT afford this bill right now.

Which brings me to the wedding… in 30 days (something like that). Guess what else we’re not affording very well. Oh well, at least that’s something that doesn’t starve my children if we can’t afford it. I know, I know, it’s our wedding and it should be spectacular, but really… I don’t care that

much, truly. And, no, I’m not protesting to much. 😉

Alright, lovelies, I must go. You know, life stuff to live.

~Tia</