A Rented Life

2/11/2005


I like days like this – days in which my pilgrimage to the post office nets items other than reminders that I live a rented life.

I love it when I’m greeted with a letter from a friend, a surprise package, or anything other than bills. Granted, the bill collectors take our relationship seriously. They never miss a month’s writing. I mean so much to them that even when I’ve moved, they haven’t miss a beat sending their reminders to my new address usually before I have a chance to tell them of the change.

I used to be bothered by the monthly correspondence from my creditors. Some would call it paranoid. I called it heightened responsibility. My habit was to pay the bills before the due date. If late, I would apologize via telephone for accidentally over looking the statement then hide in dark corners of my home out of shame waiting for the debtor’s prison guards to come take me away.

Then it all changed.

The process of crazy bill owing insanity transmuted into something else a couple of years ago not long after moving to another state. With the physical move came a move in the dates all of my utility bills were due. They all landed at the same time. What were these people thinking?

During my search to find a way to lessen the stress, I ran across a little italicized note on one of my bills stating: PLEASE CALL 800-xxx-xxx IF YOU NEED TO DISCUSS YOUR BILLING STATEMENT BLAH, BLAH, BLAH,…OR NEED TO CHANGE YOUR BILLING SCHEDULE YADA, YADA, YADA. Bingo, I thought!

Being young and ignorant, I called, explained my situation, and shyly asked to have my payable date moved to another week. After a long stream of consciousness ramble, I finally took a breath and sat back in the most uncomfortable kitchen chair the world had to offer just to hear the operator say “NO”! Surely, I heard wrong, the wind must have blown wildly at that time, a glitch in the line, an uncontrolled burp from the operator. So sweetly, I said, “excuse me”. Which was greeted with: “the type of account you carry does not allow that modification”. To which I picked up my billing statement reading out loud the whole paragraph leading up to and including the phrase that got my fingers moving over the telephone keypad. When my recitation was completed, the cruel bitch repeated her denial.

I asked to speak to the supervisor. After being put on hold for what felt like forever, the “manager” picked up the line…I swear it was the same person I was speaking with before – can’t prove it but my knower just knows. Needless to say, I was denied again and again and again.

So, I tried. I tried to keep up with the schedule given me but failed many times over all the while being haunted by the voice of the mean “no” spewing telephone worker until one day I said, “fuck it. No matter what, I’m going to be behind so lets be behind on my own schedule.” So I changed my due date incurred the vast fees for being late by 5 minutes and subsequently paid off the bill years later. Sweet relief, those people are out of my life!

The celebration lasted only a short while – actually a week until the next group of life bills began showing up: rent, gas, electric, insurance, car, and telephone. These are all reminders that my existence is rented, on lease in this world. Even after I die, someone somewhere is going to be looking for one more check that slipped past the deadline.

In the background, Happy Rhodes is serenading the air with her sweet melodic insanity. There are times I believe the insane have it easier. They could give a damn about the traps of this rented life. While some fitfully battle their demons like warriors, the smart and insane just let it all go and rock themselves to sleep. For the most part, the insane just live to the end.

Maybe the insane are birds without wings. Neither birds nor the deranged give a crap about pay schedules, or who’s going to feed them or anything about the stuff of life. They just live. Maybe I should shut up and learn a thing of two from them.

Until then, I will continue to insert my key into the dusty gray mailbox hoping someone other than the impersonal monthly writers recognizes that I’m still breathing.

Peace,
zss

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