Withering Machine Gun Fire

Just to continue the theme of "My Problems Are of My Own Making" I offer up this exchange. . .

One of my executor tasks was to set up an Estate Checking Account - this is money set aside to take care of any of my father's residual expenses.  This was the starting point for yet another descent deep into the world I descend into so often, the chaos world of Fucking Things Up. Normally the idea is to try to make things better, not worse.  That's my intent, anyway - the results are open to interpretation.

I got a bill for $30 from someone who had already been paid an exorbitant amount from Medicare and dad's supplemental insurance, but still wanted more money.  My suggestion to these people would be to do a primary instincts inventory, concentrating perhaps on the money end of things. As to the bill - fair enough: a legitimate and minor expense that I'm obligated to pay.  

Unfortunately, I wrote the check well before the money transferred into the estate account was actually . . . you know . . . in the estate account, ensuring that the check was of the very rubber variety.  This is why I don't have access to our personal checking account - the first check I have written in like 20 years and I bounced the mother.

A corrected bill arrived: the original $30 plus an additional $30 for their inconvenience.  I didn't think that they had been that inconvenienced but I guess you can tack on whatever additional charges you want to if you're the ones in charge of printing the bill.  They could have added $130. What am I going to say?  You can't do that?  Clearly they can do that.  They did do that.

So, you say, it's $30, right, split equally between my sister and me.  You, sir, would be incorrect because it had already evolved the Principle of the Thing.  I called the billing organization and explained that my father had died and things were a little disorganized, that I was sorry and I was sending the replacement check today.  Oh, and would they remove the 100% service charge?  No, they would not.

I got dinged by my bank for bouncing one of their checks and that seemed reasonable.  I thought it was kind of shitty for this overcompensated group of greedy bloodsuckers to keep piling on with the charges.  It was a bill for an ER doc who had already been paid $1000 for what was probably an hour's worth of work.  Again, he can charge whatever he wants - that is not disputable.  My paying these charges is highly disputable.

"We just can't remove that charge," the clerk said, bluntly.

"Well, I'm not paying that," I countered, miffed.  "I'm happy to pay the bill and I'll mail the check today but I'm not paying a 100% service charge."

"I'll note that on the account," she replied.

"So you won't remove the charge?" I said, soldiering on through the billing office equivalent of withering machine gun fire.  You always hear about the hero who makes it through the withering machine gun fire to blow up the tank or pillbox, knife the enemy machine gun guy in his foxhole - you don't often hear about all of the guys who are cut in half with 50mm machine gun bullets.

"No, sir, we can't remove that," she said, clearly used to dealing with people like me.

"Sure, you can remove it," I said.  "You won't remove it, which is an entirely different thing.  It's your bill - you can add or subtract anything you want."

I was smack dab in the middle of one of those situations where I was getting pissed while trying to refrain from acting badly.  You know: stress - when the mind overrides the body's basic desire to choke the shit out of some asshole who desperately deserves it.  Anyway, my voice gets lower and lower, more growly, sort of like the weird keening noise a cat makes right before it lunges at another cat.

She stood her ground.  I refused to yield.  I am currently annoyed enough to never cede any territory.  She can send it to a collection agency.  She can hire a lawyer.  I'm not paying the %$^!! thirty dollars.

I have considered sending in small amounts of money over an extended period of time.  That might work for me.  $2.17 here, $1.38 there, weaseling the amount down but never giving them the satisfaction of clearing the account.  They'll spend hundreds of dollars of customer service time and data entry time and never see a zero.  I'll leave the last 80 cents open forever.  Contemplating this line of defense gives me an inordinate amount of pleasure.

This is why I'm going to hell.