See, sometimes it pays to bitch people out when they're trying to rip you off.

A certain phone company, we'll call it BCS (because that doesn't work right either), tried to charge me a $200 early termination fee, even though I had DSL service for exactly a year at my apartment. I called and attempted to reason with the poor service person. When I started to feel anger coming on, I said, "Look, I know it's not your fault, and I don't want to be angry with you, so can you let me talk to a manager." She said that she already asked a manager (which she had) about my account. She said, to me, Mr. Anger, that she would put the last month's fee under review (the $26.95 or whatever). I said, "No, you WILL PUT the $200 termination fee under review, because I can pay the $27 no problem, and that will take off the termination fee, because that will set me up a full year." Basically, she was trying to rip me off...bitch.

Suffice to say, I looked at the glass half empty point of view and factored in the $200 in my budget. That would have left me in supremely dire straits until my reimbursement comes in the 15th of December, because of my Toronto trip.

Well, today, pleasantly, I was surprised to find out that, indeed, I was right. They had pulled the $200 off my now-closed account and actually were sending me a $26 refund check.

Hopefully I am done with this. For a company that I've actually gotten good phone and Internet service from, their billing department really doesn't get it half the time. And that's frustrating as hell...

P.S. I'm 27 and one half years old today, and for those of you Catholics who give a crap, it's my feast day too. Today also is the birthday, I believe, of my deceased godfather (who shared my first and last names--though spelled slightly differently--two of nearly a dozen relatives who share first and last names, named after my grandfather.)