by Cat Sidh
Friday was one of those days when I would have been better off staying in bed. Actually the whole week has been like that and I will be glad when it’s over. To really understand what a bad day it was on Friday, you have to hear about Thursday.
I went to work on Thursday with three dogs scheduled into the shop which is a decent day but not great. I got there and two of the three rescheduled. Ok, so that left me one which at least pays for my gas to go to work. It turns out that she can’t pick the dog up until 4 which is still ok although I try to leave at 2 unless I have actual work to do.
So I finish the dog by noon and then I piddle around, cleaning up, worked outside a little, basically wasted 4 hours doing nothing. When she comes to pick him up, she drops a gift certificate on the counter. It was one that I had donated back in November for a little girl with cancer. It expired January 31st. So you know, I honor it anyway and so am left with a 9 hour day for nothing. Sigh… some days are like that.
I get home and the goats and horse are out. I spent an hour fixing the fence and chasing one goat around. I finally get inside and turn on the light…. no electricity. So I forgot to call the electric company and tell them I was making a payment on Friday. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I call the electric company and discover that I now have to not only pay the past due amount but also the whole amount until they disconnected it PLUS a hundred dollar reconnection charge.
For about 60 seconds, I wondered how long I could live without electricity and then I remembered that the water runs on it. Sigh…. So I find my checkbook in the dark by candlelight, write the check and they turn it back on.
Friday actually started out pretty well. I got up early and checked my account. The tax refund had arrived so I didn’t have to transfer money into the account to cover the electric bill. I got an early start to work and all my dogs showed up. So far, so good.
Then it started to rain. My windshield wipers on my van have not been working correctly. The driver’s side works halfway and the passenger side doesn’t work at all. On the way home the passenger side decided to wiggle. Wow! Maybe it was going to be a miracle. It wiggled a couple of times and then it went half way up…. and stopped. Well, ok, so maybe if I turn them up on high, it will either work or go down.
I flipped the switch and the drivers side windshield wiper flipped out. No, I mean literally flipped out. It went all the way up and kept going. So I am driving down the road in the pouring rain and my windshield wiper is waving madly off the side of the van in mid air. Thank god there were no cars coming or it would have slapped them silly.
I got it put back on the windshield and made it home running them on low. I walked in the door soaking wet and……..NO ELECTRICITY! This has got to be some kind of bad dream. This was yesterday all over again. I JUST PAID THEM!
It’s 4:45 so I call the electric company and they tell me that I don’t have sufficient funds so they turned it back off. WHAT? I checked my account. I have more than enough to cover the check. Sorry, I called and your bank said there was not sufficient funds to cover the check.
So I called the bank. Sure enough, the funds were there. I called the electric company back. Now I will tell you that at this point I am NOT a happy camper. I am ready to rip someone’s face off and shove it where the sun don’t shine. I yell at the bank. I yell at the electric company.
The electric company tells me it’s too bad, I will have to pay by debit card and oh by the way, by the time you do that we will be closed and you will have to pay the $100 after hours fee. I swear that it’s times like these that I wish I drank. About this time, I realize that fumbling around in the dark last night, I had written the check off the business account and not my personal account. It was my fault again.
I still say in my defense that if they had deposited the check instead of calling, my overdraft protection would have kicked in and the check would not have been returned.
So tonight I am looking at not one Stupid Tax but TWO! Two hundred dollars in two days. Two hundred dollars that I have been sitting here making lists of the things that I could have, should have, would have used that money for other than paying stupid taxes. I could rip MY face off and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
I think I am going to stay in bed tomorrow. My bedroom window faces the electric pole and just in case this has become a habit, I can take aim….
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Tags: electric bills, stupid tax
