2002 Story Set
| April 2, 2002 I spent today, nearly five hours of it, sorting the monthly bills and papers. Of course, having been laid off on March 5th, you would think that such things would be caught up in my house. Not so. I was looking for the paperwork for COBRA, which I have now found. And the check that was to pay the first month's premium, which is actually about half of that premium. Nearly $600 is the cost to continue insurance. Worth every penny. I finally found it. And I also found that I have to call and check on the coverage. I called HR but they could not tell me what was in the letter or what to do with it. So I opened and tossed and wrote checks and filed and did all that stuff. Down to the wheelchair rental, for which they don't seem to be getting secondary insurance billed. So that's a phone call. And COBRA - which has the little page telling me that if I have a high-cost illness and have MediCal, the state will pay for the insurance premium. So that's a phone call since my son has a high-cost illness. Cancer. That qualifies I believe. I will call until I find a human. And then AT&T is dropping HBO from the regular channel lineup on the 4th of April and today is the 2nd. So that's a phone call because we are so bloody bored at the cable line up here. The regular line up does not have the SciFi channel. It has lots and lots of foreign language based channels, and lots of sports channels, and some other stuff that is truly boring. And then HBO, which had been running on three channels, dropped to one. And they run the same movies over and over and over. And now that is going away. So I have to give in and switch to digital. For six months we can get "everything". At the end of six months, we will summarily disconnect "everything" down to a manageable bill. Plus the bill is due, and they don't bill the credit card. (I am one of those people who wants EVERYONE to bill my credit card so I only have to write ONE check. I'm not there yet.) So that is another call to get them to transfer the balance to the credit card. And I must sell my executable stock option by the 5th? By the 20th? And that is yet another call I must make. Because I don't know what the deadline is and then I have to call to do the actual sale. I have managed to file the necessary papers. I hate making phone calls as much as I hate sitting and writing out checks. Which ranks right up there with sitting and typing out tax records. Or standing and sorting out the tax drawer, that annual event of horror. I have just completed that mess. Once I had about 15 envelopes stamped and sealed and ready, I took my newly burned CD with two eBooks on it (updates of two of my textbooks) in a padded envelope and went to---- the post office. The customer service window is open to 4PM. So it says. The line stretched out of the main room, across the lobby to the far wall. It stayed that way while I was there. Service time? About 45 minutes. It is always like that. I was prepared. I stood, and stood, and stood. Every now and then we inched forward. Of course I did not have my form filled out. I had no idea what form I needed. I seldom go to the post office. I filled out the form and waited in the secondary line for those of us too dumb to get the sign that tells us to fill out our forms before we get to the window. I mailed the CD, stopped in the lobby and shoved all 15 envelopes into the slot and fled. Tomorrow I will face the phone calls. I deserve to go sit in the spa. |
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