I don’t need to ask if you have ever had one of THOSE days because I think it would be a very rare person that has not had at least one. Today was mine.
Where to begin...I guess that a good place would be the day that I cashed my severance check from EDS. One might think that this was a good thing I mean I did, I finally got to pay off my credit card debt and still had a little left to put in the bank. Of course I should have known that that odd cheerful feeling I was experiencing at being debt free for the first time in 19 years could only lead to disaster. How could receiving a severance check be a bad thing? Well, it has become a bone of contention between myself and my good buddy MARVIN (Michigan’s Automated Response Voice Interactive Network) or for those of you outside of Michigan, the Unemployment Commission.
When you cash a severance check (and this probably also applies to unused vacation if you are lucky enough to get paid for it) they look at that and say “ golly, you just received Excessive Compensation” which means that they stop sending you checks while they contact your former employer. At this point, I was informed by the nice young lady on the information hotline, they are running about four months behind in such matters. Four months without an unemployment check. Yeah, that sounds like a plan, just make sure to forward the checks to my parents place once this mess is cleaned up because I am probably going to be moving in with them when I can’t cover my rent.
It could be worse I mean I might have children, or a wife, or anything that makes a life worth living and I could get to watch the effects of destitution on them.
But wait, there’s more! I got a call from the Fraud Prevention department for my Visa card (you remember, the one that I finally paid off) and it seems that some prick decided to buy about $1500.00 worth of computer equipment from Dell and charge it to me. Hmmm, no I don’t think so. According to the young lady I spoke to in the Fraud Prevention department I will not be liable for the purchases but I suspect that I will somehow end up getting screwed, probably on my credit report. I had them close my account and decided to close every card in my possession but one, and then I wrote a letter to the Dell Corporate Offices not only to alert them but to see if I can get any information about the shipping address for that purchase. I doubt I will get anywhere with Dell, but I am really pissed of and need to do something to keep from feeling helpless.
My other credit card Fraud Prevention department called me not long after the first but luckily no unauthorized purchases were made with that card. That’s all I would have needed today is one more thing to push me over the edge. My neighbors are doing their best to set me off with all of the door slamming...deep breath. Let it out.
This entry was not meant to elicit your pity and is not a cry for help (not to anyone except the Unemployment Commission anyhow), but is just a chance for me to share what kinds of things that inevitably come along every year to screw up my X-mas holiday. It could have happened to anyone. It could have happened at any time. Unfortunately it happened to me a few weeks before X-mas 2003.
Bah humbug once again.
Posted on 12/09/2003 at 07:07 PM 
Posted on 12/10/2003 at 10:16 AM 
That is can.. happen to anyone at any time.. my big crazy tiem was last season where sucided made so much sense to be so high around the holidays.