the phone bill

It's hard to describe the amazement and excitement that I initially felt when the phone bill arrived at my door this month. You see, usually how it works is when they cut off your phone service, you go to pay the bill, but you never actually see a bill, you just give them however much they ask for (within reason). Now, apparently, the phone company has decided that they are going to be a little bit more modern and cater to their customers by delivering the bills to your doorstep.

We've had some trouble with the phone company in the past few months. The line is actually not in my name, nor is it in my current roommate's name, but in the name of another girl 'R' who lived with us when it was set up, which means that she is the only person who can go and pay the bill. When R goes to pay they really give her a hard time, asking to see her passport and then saying 'this can't be you, this is a boy's name' and when she says 'no, this is my picture' they say 'this doesn't look anything like you...this isn't you'. Right now, she doesn't live with us, so when we get close to where we think the company might cut off our phone, we have to call her and ask her to go and pay the bill, which I hate doing b/c it's such a hassle to pay bills around here, but we have no choice.

It started on a Saturday night, we got a random phone call from the phone company wanting to know our exact address. We didn't understand why he needed it and we don't even know our exact address. Around here they don't even have an address system...since there's no mail or any other reason to need it. Usually you just give the name of the area of town you're in, maybe the name of the nearest street that has a name, but this guy wanted the exact house number and everything, so we dug through some stuff and found it. The next day some random guy showed up at our front door looking for my friend. R doesn't live with us so she wasn't here and the guy almost didn't even give us our bill since 'he' (R) wasn't here, but I talked him into it. The next day I gave her the bill and she went to pay it. Turns out, they were delivering the bills for June, which we already paid last month when it was due...however, conveniently enough, we had one more day to pay our July bill before they turned off our phone, so she paid us up through July. I'm looking forward to next month when we can get our July bill just in time for the August one to be due!

I understand that the phone company wants to do the customer service thing and actually get your bill to you, but an entire month late....really?!? And who cares who is paying the bill? Seems like they would just be glad to be getting their money no matter who it's coming from.

So that was our phone bill experience this month. Not too exciting but another example of how backwards and illogical just about everything is in my life in the Sandbox!