Tuesday, June 13, 2000

the phone gods hate me. plain and simple.

if you are a regular reader of this site....i think there may be a couple of you....you may remember the sprint fiasco. back in march i discovered i was paying 30 cents a minute. it's kind of funny now...but then again.....

i switched to at&t on march 21st. today while paying bills i took a look at the charges to deduce whether or not brad had lived here when the charges were made. i was surprised. why if i was signed up for 10 cents a minute would a 65 minute call cost $16.90? shouldn't it be $6.90? so i called the phone company to find out who i needed to speak with....then i called at&t...they were nice, they called the phone company and the order was received on march 21st all right....but the phone company screwed up. this is the same company that will cut you off if your phone bill is 6 days late mind you......

while on hold i added up the minutes and figured out that i was over-charged by $40....that's a lot of money out of the utility fund...now, here's the kicker:

the solution: the phone company is sending me copies of my phone bills for the past couple of months. i have to fax these copies with an explanation to at&t and the charges will be adjusted........WITHIN 2 BILLING CYCLES!!!!!!

do i have wealthy heiress tattooed across my forehead? apparently i am just supposed to pay up and wait for them to straighten their end out. personally, i am a bit disturbed......and i think the phone company sucks....frontier communications, wassup?! wonder how much i have tied up in overpayment from the past three months? $80? $120? sorry for the rant...people, watch your phone bills closely...go home tonight, pull them out and check....call and complain......make sure you are getting what you were promised....never trust anyone when it comes rate charges...this is where they get you!!! don't be a sucker!
posted by April Fraze 6/13/2000 04:31:30 PM| link

there are so many days when i feel like i work for a substitute teacher....do you know what i mean? everyday i send data.....now two weeks later i get several phone calls asking for that data.....the same data that is just down the hall from the caller....is it really easier to call and ask me to look it up? what about that big dry erase board just inches from your desk? you know, the one where all of this is posted every day for a month.

then there are the calls with questions like this:

"do you have credit card capabilities?"

"if i did then why would i be sending them to you for processing 6 weeks later?"

i need to be more understanding i suppose, but it's irritating when you get chastised by e-mail for not sending in a picture for the stupid billboard so people know what you look like....and at the same time there are about a million other things on the collaborative company plate......sheesh. now i have to go. it's time to get out and buy that camera....gotta take a picture of myself for the bulletin board.

i have absolutely got to go back to school....academia good....business bad....
posted by April Fraze 6/13/2000 02:28:02 PM| link

in 1977 i was 3 years old. i don't remember how the ordeal began, but i do remember going to the hospital. i have been told that i cried because my new baby brother could not come home right away. he had jaundice and was kept for a few days. when the day came that he was released i rode home in the truck, between my mother and father.......perry was cradled in my mother's arms wearing a sleeper.....bugs bunny in a hammack while tweety perched on the end across his tiny chest.

my tender age at the time only affords me a few memories of those early years. when we moved into town to a rented house (awaiting the move in date of our new home), perry was about a year old. he had an obsession with his baby brush and would brush my hair with it frequently. then there was the "big scare". my mother stepped outside for a few seconds....perry swallowed a bit of tin foil and was choking....mom reached down his throat to free up his breathing.

perry became most active in the next home and most of what we can remember from our childhood occurred there.....a 75 acre patch of land with an open field hidden by forest, a creek, and freedom to explore. we spent our time outdoors trudging between our house and the neighbor's home.....investigating the wonders around us. there were days in the yard sitting on a blanket weaving clover chains. we cooled off in the sprinkler and we collected redbud tree buds to be strung into hair wreaths. i had glamour gals that matched the size of his g.i. joe dolls and he had a ken doll.

i remember the anger i felt when i caught the girl my mother baby sat with perry and his ken doll....barbie and ken undressed, ken on top of barbie....perry tried to move ken to barbie's side, but according to the girl this was not how it worked. i walked in on the scene and immediately reported it to my mother. i must have been 78 and he was likely 3 then. my innocence at this time had been stripped by recess gossip, but i wouldn't allow it for perry....he deserved his youthful ignorance.

my little brother was fearful at night and my father would have to bribe him to sleep in his own bed. usually my parents woke up and found him on the floor in their room anyway. i can't blame the kid really....i know the comfort that can be found in their room on a scary night, but because of this fear he typically spent christmas eve in my bed so mom and dad could let santa in. we decorated a small cedar tree for my room, placed on top would be a cardboard cut-out of a star covered with tin foil....a symbol from my mother's childhood. we would watch the reports of santa's journey on the news and head to bed as early as 7:00pm.

perry believed in santa for a long time. he was the baby, and even though i had found out at the age of 9 i refused to let my brother's belief be swayed. i remember how he and mindy, our neighbor girl, began to have doubts. p.j. (mindy's older brother who was in my class) and i vehemently insisted that santa was real. it's hard to account for the conversations between us as children. even as a child i understood the benefit of faith in something such as the "spirit" of santa, and even though i knew what happened under the soft light of our christmas trees on christmas eve....i knew my brother wanted with all of his heart to believe and i was going to honor that and be sure that no outside influence discouraged his desire.

as perry got older we had our share of hateful encounters. we had some knock-down drag out fights and injuries were equally distributed, but there was still a dedication between us. on the bus there were twin girls who were a grade behind me who made flirtatious comments to perry. he was still too young to understand.....until the day one of them grabbed his little butt as he was getting off the bus.....i turned on them and explained in the most hateful way i could conjure the manner of their sickness and the consequences that might occur if a similar incidence happened in the future.

it wasn't uncommon for me to complain to my friend about my brother. she was the youngest in her family like him and when she joined in and faulted him with certain behaviors i saw in those words of dislike her own behaviors within her family circle and i resented it. i had earned the right to bad mouth perry, but she hadn't. he was always cordial and good in public. he was a good kid who did well in school and everyone liked him.

after i went away to college we had less time together and the changes that took place in his appearance were emphasized by the time that passed between visits. he was a teen-ager and i was often hurt that he didn't cancel his weekend plans to spend time with his big sis. he grew big and strong and the girls were crazy about him. it was quite sick the way they swooned. i was surprised to see the devotion he had for his girlfriends. one little girl he dated for several years....we went out west on vacation during their relationship. he and i went down to our hotel hot tub and sat for awhile. he never talked much about girls to anyone in our family....i believe he disliked being teased. that day he told me about the agreement he had made with kristi...each night they were going to look at the brightest star and think of each other. his love was unwavering. her birthday was the last day of our vacation and he had gotten her a boombox, wrapped it and left it for her mother to give her. we made it home a day early, so he went and bought a rose and called her. she was busy and did not have tme to visit with him. for a couple of days she avoided him and then she dumped him. apparently while we where gone she had hooked up with another boy at the public pool. he went and picked up the boombox and confined him self to his room for quite awhile. his little heart broken for the first time. it wouldn't be the last. he went through a string of break-ups where he was told he was too nice. my father jokingly told him maybe he needed to "rough 'em up a bit".

now it has been nearly 6 months since i have seen perry. he has been dating this little girl we used to play with when he was about 8. my mother called last night so that perry could talk to me. he had tried to call the night before but couldn't get through because we were on-line. he and krissi have been going fishing a lot lately and accoring to perry he had been baiting her hook more than fishing. he cast out his pole and told her to take it while he baited hers. he told her she may need to reel it in and check the bait. when she did she saw a ring on the line. so now.....that little boy who used to brush my hair.......who gave me my only black eye....and who taught me the benefits of having a sibling is getting married. it's difficult to believe really, but he's a man.

congratulations perry and krissi!
posted by April Fraze 6/13/2000 08:40:49 AM| link

Monday, June 12, 2000

congratulationgs are in order! my friend butler recently adopted elska! isn't she cute?
posted by April Fraze 6/12/2000 08:42:34 PM| link

another day, another dollar....or so the saying goes. blogging has become less of a priority for me lately, nt for lack of desire, but for lack of content. i have a car problem though....that's new. it seems like my car doesn't wish to start...it will...eventually, typically on the third try, but it cranks over several time before taking off....i hope it's something simple, like spark pluge, but who knows? i have an appointment on thursday with road runner auto which is about 2 blocks away. keep your fingers crossed.
posted by April Fraze 6/12/2000 07:16:41 PM| link