Monthly Archives: August 2006

in which i become a meanie

Posted by lorie on 8/31/2006 2 comments

I just officially cursed at a customer service rep for the very first time.

Well, maybe it’s better to say that I cursed in her general direction. I wasn’t cursing her. I was cursing her loan shark whore of an employer. I wish I could have gotten the president of the damn company on the phone so I could have cursed at him or her, but I’m guessing the president’s office isn’t anywhere near the call center in India.

Back in college I managed to firebomb my credit into a mangled mess of wreckage, and since then I have been busting ass to get it back in good shape. It’s going to take another two years or so before most of the worst stuff finally falls off my credit reports, and so in the meantime I have an absolutely hideous FICO score. This means that it’s tough for me to get credit, but one of the sucky things about credit is that you have to have it to build it. It’s like how when you first start working, you can’t get a job because you don’t have any experience, but you have to have a job to get experience. You’re stuck.

I seriously have an insane amount of knowledge about credit cards now. I can tell you what score you’ll need to get just about any card from any company, I know who the best lenders are and who the worst are, and I know lots of other weird things too. Whatever. This is a roundabout way of saying that I have a sucky subprime credit card. I charge things on it sometimes, and I pay at least more than double the minimum every single month. I have never, ever made a late payment. The card has a shit limit, an annual fee, and a 16.7% APR, but surprisingly, it’s not the worst credit card I could have.

Oh, wait, I’m sorry. Did I say it had a 16.7% APR? My bad. It actually has a TWENTY-EIGHT PERCENT APR now, which I only noticed when I was scanning my statement before paying the bill today.

After I recovered from my sudden heart attack, I called the customer service number on the back of my card (which is not even an 800 number, by the way) to find out what the hell was up.

She gave me some convoluted explanation about some new way of calculating it, and blah-de-blah something plus something else, and asked if I’d gotten the notification. I told her that I hadn’t and asked her to help me understand exactly how this can be, when I’ve never paid them late. She said it was their “new policy.” I asked if the new APR is permanent, and she said that it could change in the future but “they didn’t have any other offers right now.” I have a funny feeling that if it changes, it will only increase.

At least, I guess, she was kind enough not to say the truth: “We know you have horrible credit or else you wouldn’t have our shitty card, so since you have limited options we figured we can just dick you around however we want to because you can’t exactly go anywhere but down from here.”

For the record, I probably won’t be cancelling the card, because doing so will reduce my available credit and shorten my “good” credit history, so it would actually hurt me to do so. Instead, I’m putting that bastard away somewhere, and will use it every six months or so for a tank of gas so as to keep the account active and in good standing.

And then came the part where I cursed. She asked me if she could help with anything else and I told her that I was all set, and then she said she needed to ask me one more question. I knew she was about to sell me something, and I knew she was required to do it, but when she asked me if I had a car loan, I said, “Yes, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to refinance it at twenty-eight damn percent with you guys, so no, I’m not interested.” And then I felt horrible and apologized and told her I knew it wasn’t her fault, and I wasn’t angry at her, but I was absolutely and completely uninterested in any further “financing opportunities” through her employer. She’s a sweet, sweet, patient woman, because she actually laughed and said she understood and wished me a good day.

I hope she has a good day, too, and if I’m the grouchiest person she has to talk to all day, she’s probably lucky.

Telephonic Invasion

Posted by lorie on 8/30/2006 9 comments

Talking on the phone to my mother is like walking into the mall when it’s full of holiday shoppers and trying to get the attention of someone on the other side of the mall. The last time I talked to her, I told her this when I was finally able to get her attention again, and she told me to shut up, and I told her I was going to write a website entry about her. That is my second-favorite comeback, right behind “I will cut you,” and it’s just about as effective. Because I’m about as likely to actually cut you as I am to remember that I was going to write about you on my website.

But anyway, back to my mom and the phone. I’m pretty sure my mom hates talking on the phone, but she hates IMing more. Side note: on the rare occasion Mom IMs us, she’ll end her IM with “love you, mom.” It’s totally adorable. So between IMs and the phone, she chooses the phone – but seriously, you can’t talk to my mom on the phone the way you talk to normal humans on the phone.

She is constantly distracted by other people at home, the dogs, the cats, cooking, the computer, something on TV, whether or not the air conditioner just kicked on, shiny things, hot dogs – basically, everything. Sometimes you know she’s been distracted because she’ll abruptly start a conversation with someone else. That’s especially funny when you think she’s talking to you, and you’re like “what the hell?” and she gets all exasperated, like, “I was talking to DAD.” Sometimes you have to infer that she’s distracted because you’ve just asked her a question and you hear nothing but silence on the other end. Silence never means she’s thinking about what you just said. It always means she’s stopped listening.

When I was on the phone with her the other night, she started to break up a potential fight between the insane weenie dog and the kitten, and then Dad asked her what she was doing, and so she explained it to him, and they had a conversation about it, and whatever, it’s a good thing I had a nail file nearby so I could have something to occupy my time until she remembered what that black plastic thing in her hand was all about. Sometimes I just hang out and wait. Sometimes I get all pissy and am like, HELLO, I AM NOT IN THE ROOM WITH YOU. There’s no point in continuing to talk because you’ll have to repeat everything anyway.

Mom isn’t quite comfortable getting the call waiting, so she often hangs up on people by accident. She also sometimes presses buttons on the phone by accident when she balances the phone on her shoulder so she can do something else at the same time. It’s like talking to a four-year-old. She can’t be bothered to memorize my home number (which is REALLY easy) or to check their caller ID for it, so half the time she calls my cell phone, and if I happen to have it on, I’ll ask her why she called the cell, thinking maybe something was wrong with my home phone, which is when she’s all huffy like “I don’t know THAT number. I only know THIS number.”

She called my cell the other day, and when I answered the phone, she said, “Do you know where that blue backpack is?”

This made as much sense to me as it probably does to you right now. It turns out that sometime when I was in college, Ginny had a backpack that broke, and they sent it back, and JanSport sent them a new one, and it was blue, and did I know where it was? I did not, because
a) I was in college 800 miles away when this happened,
b) We didn’t even live in the same house then, and
c) It was almost TEN YEARS AGO.

I pointed this out and suggested she call Ginny. She says she doesn’t know Ginny’s number. I tell her to get a pencil and I’ll recite it to her, since I’ve memorized it, and she tells me that she just didn’t feel like looking it up, and then recites 8 of the 10 digits to me. And once again, I bet Ginny’s number is on the caller ID.

All phone conversations with my mom have a predetermined time limit that is etched in stone somewhere in the murky recesses of her brain. We never know what the time limit will be, but at some point, sometimes even mid-sentence, she’ll abruptly announce that she can’t stay on the phone anymore, and then she says her standard “loveyoubye,” which is very Mom of her (and we love it), and sometimes she hangs up on us. Sometimes she starts this and I’m like, MOM, you called ME. Doesn’t matter – she has to go. RIGHT THAT SECOND.

Mom is quite capable of having a normal conversation with you on the phone, provided that she’s home alone and it isn’t too late in the evening. She can’t focus when other things are around to stimulate her attention, and she gets all loopy after about 8:30. Most of the time, talking to her on the phone is a surreal experience where you may or may not get to the point of the phone call eventually.

Sometimes it’s maddening. Sometimes it’s hilarious. But either way, it’s very, very Mom, and if she reads this she will remind us that these are the stories we’ll tell about her when she’s dead and gone. We tell her we’re getting started early.

sopralto

Posted by lorie on 8/29/2006 11 comments

Tonight I’m going to a vocal audition/rehearsal. It’s the first time I’ll be singing in any sort of organized sense since I was in college, and I’m all stressed out because I don’t know if I’m still a soprano. I’ve sung in choirs and choruses and vocal ensembles and as a soloist or whatever since I was very young, and I have always, always been placed in soprano. I used to know exactly what my range was, where it started and ended and all that. But I’m out of practice, and just like my hair has gotten darker and darker as I’ve aged, I’m all stressed that my voice has dropped to the point that I’m an alto now.

But then I’ve been told that while you might lose notes from the top and bottom of your range over the years, your voice won’t change to a completely different pitch. I don’t know if this is true. Mainly, I’m nervous about singing again and this is how it’s manifesting itself. I’m all freaked out that I’ll roll in and call myself a soprano and people will think I know what I’m doing and then I won’t be able to hit all the notes.

I am such a spaz. But seriously, I’m really pretty nervous. I’d feel much better if I knew where my voice is these days.

shut it

Posted by lorie on 8/29/2006 3 comments

One trend I will not be following: skinny jeans. Skinny jeans + fat ass + long feet = ugly Lorie. Fuck you, skinny jeans.

sweet cracker sandwich

Posted by lorie on 8/29/2006 1 comments

Sammi and I are sitting at Arby’s picking over the last few fries and brainstorming ways I can get my missing blog mojo back. I’m taking notes on a napkin. Sam starts talking about her mosquito bites and I say, “Good news! My foot hasn’t rotted off.”

Deadpan, she responds, “As I noticed when you walked in here on two feet.”