two thousand six hundred and four

Since January, I've been getting a bill from AT&T that says I owe them for long distance. These are little bills, not more than $8.00 accruing each month. The problem is that I don't have AT&T for long distance, I have Working Assets, that groovy company that gives you pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, donates money to great causes, and is linked to Sprint. When I moved in with H. a few years ago, I decided to get off the AT&T corporate teat once and for all, opting for Working Assets long distance, and SBC for wireless and land line.

Since January, I've been calling AT&T, trying to clear up the bill. This is difficult because my SBCglobal account is also now called AT&T, only, I've come to find out, this is different from "the old AT&T" or "legacy AT&T" which is the one that's billing me for the long distance I never ordered. To try to straighten out this mess, I called Working Assets, who told me to call SBC, who told me to call AT&T, who told me to call Legacy AT&T, who told me that my local provider is the one who switched me and that I had to call them. I call back SBC and an operator tells me that there is no record of this, but that she'll get to the bottom of it by doing a three-way [no giggling] call to the Legacy AT&T. This happens a couple of times with promises made on all sides that the account will be removed. But the bills still come, and the amount is increasing.

Then I get a call from Legacy AT&T telling me my name is being sent to a creditor, which really pisses me off. This past weekend, I spent about an hour and a half on the phone, mostly waiting and being transferred to various "associates" named (I wrote them all down) Kevin, Nikki, Judy, Clarence, and Heather, all of whom, ironically, sound like they are from south-east Asia. When I would ask for last names, I was told they were not allowed to provide me with last names, which makes me wonder if I was being helped by prison labor in the global south. Finally, I was transferred to "Tricia," who tells me in heavily-accented English that she even though she is a supervisor, she cannot help me. According to Tricia, the person I needed to speak with works in the "Slamming Resolution Center" and I will have to call back on Monday between 9am and 5pm and thank you for choosing AT&T. I hang up.

But, as things go with me lately, it doesn't stop there. As I'm getting off the phone, I hear the mail carrier posting letters in our box out front. After I hang up, I check the mail. There is only one envelope, and it is from AT&T. I open it and it says that I owe AT&T a past due amount of $2,604 on my long distance plan.

$2,604 is a lot of money. I immedately fly into a rage. I am irrational with anger. I am the world's victim. I shake my fist at the sky and grit my teeth, cursing god's cruel joke. I decide that not only have I been slammed (had my long distance switched without my authorization), but I have also had my identity stolen and someone, somewhere is having lengthy phone calls in my name.

Since today is Monday, I took off from the university early and called AT&T back and asked to speak with the Slamming Resolution Center. It took forever. I hung on the phone even though the recording told me it was going to be at least 30 minutes and that, since Monday was their busiest days, I should call back on Wednesday. I was mistrustful of the recording and held on. Finally, after about ten minutes of muzak and advertisements for all kinds of useless AT&T services and products, I managed to get "Blair," who told me the $2,604 bill was -- oops! -- a little typo, and that the bill was supposed to read $26.04 [I should have been able to figure this out on my own, but, like I said, I was through the roof with indignance and didn't bother to compare.]. After going around and around with Blair, who kept finding ways to put loopholes in my demand that he erase all charges and close the account, he finally does what I tell him to. I even got a confirmation number in case anything goes wrong.

But this is the point: if you get slammed by the heartless and soulless AT&T, you not only have to be tenacious and patient, you have to bully them just as hard as they are bullying you. The operators will try to talk you in circles. They will tell you that your local provider switched you even though you explain a million times that you've already heard that version of the story and it didn't do you any good to hang up and call your local provider. They will say things like "O, I see, well, I can remove two months of charges for you, okay? Let me go ahead and do that for you right now . . . " and you have to reply, "NO. You will remove ALL of the charges or you will transfer me to someone who will." They will say things like, "Ah, okay, our record now shows that you were the one who made the agreement with your local provider that we can now find to be in your long distance plan which, Mr. J_______, as you can plainly see, is why we have been able to reduce your charges by 5% for you today." And you HAVE to tell them that that makes no sense because they are expecting to bewilder you with nonsense so that you'll just give in and they can continue to profit off of your weariness.

That's that. I really don't want this to be a blog about getting the run around by the powers that be, but it is a very real and annoying -- potentially endless -- part of life, one that has the potential to overshadow the fact that you had your last day of classes today, and the gardeny perfumes of jasmine and honeysuckle this spring has been so lovely, following you everywhere you go in this city, and that you don't want to jinx the weather by saying out loud how glad you are that you can still keep all the windows open and sleep well in the cool evening air.

sometimes the answers come in the mail

"Hey you Lose your Driver License
at the 'Airport' Shone Shine Stand
We had you 'Page' at the Airport
that day. Sorry it take so long
to mail you DRIVES LIC
back to you.
P.S.
I found it behind the stand"

no command to smile this time (not again!)

I stuck it in my back pocket after picking up my boarding pass at the IAH airport, thinking that when I went through security, I'd be flashing it a couple of times anyway. I didn't even realize it was missing until I got in to New Orleans, hopped out of the shuttle, and needed to provide ID to get into my hotel room. Suddenly my hard-earned driver's license was nowhere to be found, making me very, very unhappy and filling me with a deep sense of dread.

Steady readers know about my year-long fiasco with TxDPS, and so I won't recount that hellish scenario again. But since I have really bad luck with driver's licenses, I assumed the worst: that I would not be able to get onto my return flight without it, that it would not be found, that there would be hours of waiting at the DPS to get a new one, that some crazy glitch in the system would delay the production of a new one . . . for these and other reasons, I was in no hurry to get back to the DPS. (Yeah, I checked and if you lose your license you cannot just "order a new one on-line." You have to go get one.)

While on the flight home (which I got on using my work ID), I also realized that I needed a license to present to the people at the D______ Unit I'll be taking my students to visit for a prison field trip this coming Friday. This morning, I remembered that JP commented on this blog about the one DPS you could go to in the city that, from what he knew, was almost always empty. I emailed him and got both sympathy and directions, and headed South right after work, at 3pm.

The miracle is this: I was there for about a total of fifteen minutes. I stood behind a couple of people in line and then boom! my photo was being taken and I was issued a temporary license and on my way home. I have no great hopes for its smoothe arrival on Hawthorne, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

What's weird is that, even though the wait was short, the workers were very much the same as the ones I encountered at the place on South Gessner, who I figured were overworked and, for this reason, machine-like and unhappy. No one smiled or looked me in the eye. No one provided an explanation for what was going on. There were a lot of one-word commands that I had to ask to be repeated so I could understand.

I assumed, going in, that, since I just got a license, the replacement would be a digital copy of the old one, which is, surely, somewhere on file. This means that I figured that I wouldn't be getting my photo taken, but would just pay a fee and someone would place an order for a new copy. When I first arrived, I explained that I lost my license and needed a replacement. "Fill this out and come back when you're done." Anyone could quickly and easily just check the "no" boxes and scribble a fast signature on the form right there but, rather than point this out, I just circled around and got back in the four-person line. When I get back to the desk, about 45 seconds later, she points to another line of waiting motorists, "Line to your right." I wanted to say, "The line for what?" but, again, kept my mouth shut and got in it.

I stand in the short line and get called forward from behind a screen with a finger wave, "Next," the woman orders. "Hello," I smile, "I lost my license and I'd like to --". Before I can say, "get it replaced," she interrupts me by saying "Social security." "O, I'm sorry what? O, you need my social . . . ?" I am looking to find her eyes but she is staring at a computer screen. Her mouth is a straight line across. "Okay, sure," I say and recite three numbers before I realize she is not listening to me, so I stop and say, "O, wait a minute, so, do you want the number or the actual card?" Reply: "Card." Not looking at me. I put the card on the counter. She types in numbers and frowns deeply at the screen, reading my record, I guess. "Middle name," she says. I tell her. More tapping and scrolling and frowning. "Street you live on?" "Hawthorne," I say, trying to exactly mimic the robotic sound to her voice. She looks some more and then, satisfied, says "Ten dollars." I use the zombified voice again as I hand her cash, "Here. You. Go." She takes the money and says, dully, "Sign." "Yes," I drone, wanting to enjoy this little game, but my spirits are dampened by her joylessness, her profound alienation -- how much she must truly hate this job! Then, "Red light. Left thumb." Then, "Right thumb." Mm-hm. "Walk to the X." I move as robotically as I can over to what looks no different than the scuffmarks all over the floor except that it seems a little gummier from having once had black electrical tape on it in an "X" shape. No command to smile this time. I stare dumbly at the camera and the flash pops. The whole time, I wanted to ask, "But can't you just send a replacement license? Do I really need a brand new one?" But this just doesn't feel like the kind of place where you are allowed to ask questions, only take commands. She pulls a temporary license out and signs it and pushes it toward me: "Sign." "New license in the mail two- to six-weeks. Next." I mimic her a final time, trying to sound as bland and exhausted as she does, "Thank. You. So. Much." I push each word out of my mouth, and dodder over to the exit sign and leave. It's all I can do to not stick my arms out in front of me to impersonate a sleepwalking zombie.

The good news is that I now know the place to go get your license renewed or replaced that is the least crowded place, ever. (Thanks, JP!) Rather than publish it, lest the secret get out and it become overcrowded, just know that you can use me as a resource and I'll send you the directions, as long as you promise to do the robot thing with your voice, too.

inside

For those of you following in my footsteps, here's three shots I took of the inside that also made it onto the camera. The shots I took of the bathroom didn't come out, but you can see its folding door next to this little brown couch, pictured here with my Dickies backpack thrown on top. The little desk did not come in handy for writing, but you could, ostensibly, sit at it and gaze out the window at the teepee next door while your tamales microwave on high. I kept my laptop on my lap as I sat on the brown couch with my notes spread out around me.

Yes, it is dark in the teepee, although a little bit of sunlight comes in through tiny windows and, of course, the front door, if you keep it open. (I did find one mosquito and one brown recluse in the teepee.)

I say it is high time we claim Wharton as a writer's retreat -- a place for solitude and focus.

Dibs on Teepee 2!