I had kind of hemmed and hawed about whether I would blog about this; but humor won out over common sense or shame. So here’s what happened on Tuesday:
First off, I had met my “dealer” Lynne for a little dinner on Monday night, so she could feed my “addiction” to Avon products while we caught up on each other’s lives. I won’t say where we went, or what I had, but let me tell you that it gave me a mild case of food poisoning that hit around 2 in the morning.
I’ll leave out the more colorful details of the ensuing episodes, but suffice it to say that by the time I should have been leaving for work Tuesday morning, I was still in bed. I called my supervisor to say that I would be in late as I wasn’t feeling well, and went back to bed. I was still sweating a bit so I had my little fan pointing directly towards my face and was listening to the classical radio station to soothe my nerves. This worked for maybe 2 minutes, because suddenly the fan and the radio went off. Huh, that was strange. I sat up and looked at the TV and noticed the DVR box was off too. So that left only one conclusion I could draw. I looked out my bedroom window, and there was a National Grid truck in the parking area. My power had been shut off!
My head was spinning. How could this be? I had paid them off down to what I figured to be $20! I had to stop the guy before he left, so I jumped out of bed, and without bothering to put on my pants I raced down the stairs. I had on a long tee shirt, so I figured I would crack open the front door, get his attention, and then put on some pants when I was sure he wouldn’t leave.
Sounded like a good plan, huh? And it was. I cracked open the door to see if he was in the truck; and the next thing I knew Pumpkin snuck out the door and into the parking area! I knew Kitty would kill me if anything happened to Punky, so I pulled down the hem of my tee shirt and went out the door after her, flip flops, sleep bonnet and all. “Pumpkin, you come back to Grammy!” Yeah, that’s all she needed to hear. She wasn’t even running fast: she was just frolicking and kicking up her little puppy heels as she went by my car, and by hunky next-door neighbor Scott’s car, and all around our area. So now I’m trying to stay close to the garage in case any neighbors were still home, and I was hissing Pumpkin’s name trying to get her to come to me but she was having too much fun; and now had a mouthful of leaves that she knew she wasn’t supposed to have. What a fun game she was playing with half-naked Grammy!
Just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I hear Kitty behind me. “Mom, what’s going on? Pumpkin!” I turned around and there she stood in the doorway, in the shirt she was going to wear to program and no pants. At least my tee shirt covered my backside, but hers didn’t! Out the door she comes, and to add to the visual, she stoops down, pats her knees and calls Pumpkin. And like the brat she is, Pumpkin dropped the leaves and came trotting over to her mama. Kitty scooped her up, gave me a withering look, and marched back into the house in her pastel panties.
Seriously??? There was no time for her to be upset with me because the dog got out. I had noticed that there wasn’t anyone in the National Grid truck, so I ran upstairs, put on some pants, threw off my bonnet and ran back outside. No, there was no time to comb my hair! I caught up with the guy as he was getting in his truck.
“Excuse me, but why did you turn off my power?” “Because the bill wasn’t paid.” “Yes it was! The last payment was made at the end of March.” “Sorry, we don’t have a record of it.” “Well it’s there! How am I supposed to get the power back on?” “Pay the bill.”
As you could see, I was getting nowhere with this guy. Maybe I shouldn’t have put on any pants! But he sure as heck wasn’t leaving me without power at 8:40 in the morning! “Fine. How much is the bill?” “$580.60.” “Are you kidding me???? I paid the bill!” “Well if you want the power back on, you’re going to have to pay me.”
Okay, two can play that game. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll write you a check.” He blinked. “You’re going to give me a check for that amount?” “I sure am. You wait right here.” “Okay, you get the check and I’ll turn your power back on.”
I knew that the bill had been paid, but I also knew I needed to buy some time until the office opened and I could get the mess straightened out. So as he turned the power back on I wrote him the check, handed it to him and bid him a good day. Then I went back to my room (with a detour to the bathroom, of course!) to wait for the office to open at 9.
I know for a fact that I was their first call; and after I had explained the situation they were very apologetic. You see: the bill HAD been paid, it had posted but the person had neglected to move the payment over. So by the time the call was over the only thing I owe now is $4.00. And yes: I made sure to stop payment on my check!
I never thought I’d ever say this but thank goodness I had food poisoning. Otherwise who knows how long it would have taken for them to restore my power???
As for that frolicking wench Pumpkin: I hope the next time she sneaks out everyone has their pants on!
No comments:
Post a Comment