Fou-Lu the Phone Company Credit Rat

The fog has lifted. It didn't take the Pacific Press building with it, but it does seem to have made off with the world I recognize, nonetheless. Today is shaping up to be a very strange day, indeed.

In all fairness, it started last night, with the phone call from Telus. It was a telemarketing call--they wanted to increase my Internet connection speed by 70%, for a fee of $10 per month. I wasn't interested. If I had an extra ten dollars a month, I'm sure I could find something better to blow it on.

"Thanks for the offer," I said, as politely as possible. It was very difficult not to break out the sarcasm. I had been sound asleep. "--thanks for the offer, but my Internet speed is fine just the way it is."

"Okay. Can I interest you in any other services? I notice you have a value bundle already, and--"

"I do?" This was news to me.

"Yes. You are saving five dollars per month on your ADSL line. Then, you have the games bundle for ten dollars--"

"The what? I do not! What are you talking about?"

"The games bundle. You can play games online, and--"

"Hey, no! I've never even heard of that You've been charging me for--are you sure?"

"It's right here."

"What else do I have?"

"You have caller ID,"

("yeh")

"voice mail,"

("that too")

"call waiting--"

"No! No way! No call waiting!"

"forwarding--"

"What the hell? Forwarding? Who ordered this stuff? I didn't order any of this!"

"I'm terribly sorry!"

"Sorry! Sorry! Jesus H! How long have I had all this rubbish? I want my money back. I don't use anything like that. Games? Are you kidding me? What, you mean phone games, that rubbish folks have on their cell phones? Dude, man, I haven't even got a cell phone. And call forwarding? Call waiting? Are you kidding me? I never go anywhere, and I only have the one line. Hey, you going to give me a refund, there? Refund, buddy?" I got all belligerent. I always talk like an American (or, at least, as I think an American might talk) when I'm feeling rowdy and abusive.

"You'd have to talk to the billing department about that. I'm just in sales."

I wasn't done being rude, though. "You have my account there, don't you? You're looking at it! You get your boss! You do something! You, buddy, you!"

The guy stifled a snicker. I must have sounded really silly. "Listen, ma'am," he giggled, "I'd love to help you, but I'm just reading off a script here--I click a button, and sign you up for one of our programs. What you've gotta do...you've gotta call 310-2255. That's our billing department. They can tell you what's happened here."

I wrote down the number on a scrap of paper that already said

and then I rang it up, but the billing center was closed for the night. Bloody cheek, that--they keep their telemarketers going till all hours, but they shut down all the useful departments at five.

This morning, I rang back again, and they refused to give me a refund. They did, however, cancel the services I never ordered in the first place.

With that out of the road, I decided to pay my telephone bill--you know, while I was thinking about it, sort of thing. Me, I like to do all my banking online. Saves me a trip. Once in a while, I get a bit forgetful and pay the same bill twice, but that's all right. Less to pay next month, I always say. I like my banking calm and uneventful.

Calm and uneventful. Calm and uneventful. Everything in its place. All the little numbers adding up. No twenty-five hundred dollar credit limit increases I never asked for. No twenty-five hundred dollar credit limit increases I never asked for.

That's right. What the hell? My Visa card, which I'm positive had a limit of five thousand dollars as recently as last week, is suddenly showing seventy-five hundred. Gave me a cold chill, that did, just looking at it. That seventy-five hundred, that's not a credit limit. That's a debt waiting to happen. Giving that kind of credit to someone with as little money as I've got is like selling drugs to kids. Yes, Royal Bank, I want your heroin. I want it very, very badly--but I'd rather not have the addiction that goes along with it, if it's all the same to you.

A few minutes later, I was sitting right here licking Nutella off a spoon, and then the spoon was just gone. It took me a moment to understand what had happened. It was Stella, of course. She jumped up, took my damn spoon, and jumped down again. She got a lot of Nutella on her head, and a lot of Nutella on the carpet. I'm not sure how much went into her mouth. I'm not even sure she should be sticking that in her mouth in the first place. I bought it to try and fatten myself up, see--but Stella doesn't need any fattening. I got light cream cheese for her. Diet stuff. She doesn't notice it's diet if I mix lots of fruit into it.

So, you see, it's been rather an odd day so far. Counting in the weirdo from tech support and the smoker downstairs, that's four separate instances of folks doing toadsome things to me, and one jump-by ratting. The way things are going, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if a video game character did jump out of my screen and drive me out of my own bed. Bring on your dragon god emperor kings. I fear them not. I, after all, have Stella on my side.

* I thought it would be really funny to draw a picture of this--not in any metaphorical sense, as in "Man, you are such an egg suck dog!"--but a literal image of a dog sucking an egg. I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget. This was several weeks ago. It seems I forgot anyway.

** I had a dream where a video game character (Fou-Lu, the...etc.) jumped out of my screen and got into bed with me. He wouldn't get out, either. It was really annoying. He had all the covers on his side. At any rate, I wrote that down too, so I wouldn't forget to put it in my journal. (Evidently, I still did, until now.)

*** These, I did not forget. They were delicious, and gone too soon.