Snap, back to reality
Well, kids.
After a beautiful month of vacation in the Western Hemisphere including the following:
a divine week under the golden sun on the beaches of Turks and Caicos (absolutely nauseating, I assure you) with my hilarious family (yes, matching baby blue polos with the emblem "Burandt 2008 Holiday" on the right breast pocket were definitely donned for Christmas Eve dinner)...
a refreshing visit to Washington DC over New Year's/my 25th birthday...
a quick, thoroughly entertaining jaunt down to Nashville...
and a nostalgic and replenishing weekend down to Winston-Salem, NC home of the alma mater Wake Forest and a stop-over in Charlotte...
each sojourn complete with precious hours of quality time spent with friends so inexpressibly dear to my heart...
I found myself one week ago today back in Sevilla, Spain where I had a quick, bitter dose of reality.
As we all know, one coolest things about "real life" is paying bills. (For those of you who may have happened upon this musing and therefore might not know me extremely well, read sarcasm.) Let me also assure you, that paying bills in another language and a foreign country where they do things just different enough from the US so as to confuse you does not make it any cooler, but rather, more frustrating (imagine that). In fact... I went all fall waiting and waiting for power bills to reach my mailbox so I could pay them, but they never came.
So when I arrived in my piso (apartment) last Sunday afternoon to find two backed up electricity bills comfortably coated by a substantial mantle of dust and total dishevelment of personal effects, I greeted reality, acknowledged "I don't think we're at Club Med anymore, Toto," and wondered what in the world my roommates could have possibly doing while I was gone that they couldn't some how prevent or at least soften the current hazardous state of our piso. But, I digress. I put myself to work, paid some bills and cleaned.
The following day, Monday, consisted of a day's work followed by an enjoyable lunch and afternoon with my ex-roommate Sylvia. Then, my current roommate Lidia called me with the bomb. She returned to our house that day to find it without power. Curious. Did I know why? No, in fact, I just paid two bills the day before. I tried to problem solve for her from Sylvia's house to no avail, and ended up coming home to a FREEZING piso and putting myself to bed by candlelight, resolving to talk to the doorman in the morning to see if he had any help to offer our predicament.
Tuesday, I woke up as an ice cube and went to pay another community/water bill (yoohoo) to turn in to the doorman as I asked him about our electricity. (See how I know how to work the system?) So I gave Paco the receipt to the communidad and asked if he knew anything about our electricity. That's when he laid it on me. "Yeah, they cut off y'all's power yesterday."
WHAT?
Excuse me? Did I hear you right? They CUT OFF my power? Couldn't be. I hadn't gotten a notice. I paid two bills yesterday online. He suggested I go call and check it all out. She-yeah.
I pick up the phone. Time out... it's wireless therefore doesn't work without electricity... guess I'll call from my cell. Might as well bust out the computer to try to pull up my online proof of payment for our conversation. Time out... there's no internet when the WiFi in the house needs electricity to run.
This is when it hits me. I didn't realize this actually happened to people, like not in the movies.
I thought you had to be like a red-neck, white cracker to not pay your bills and therefore have your power cut off.
Awesome. I AM that red-neck, white cracker.
Well... an hour later which consisted of talking to two different phone operators, getting hung up on, reciting myriads of payment information, and suffering through an extremely painful version of someone singing "the sun will come out tomorrow" while on hold... as if the power company somehow knew that the clients utilizing their help line would be desperate and in need of a little reassurance albeit in the form of cheesy music, not to mention sung in a language that the wide majority of Spaniards don't understand.... we finally came to the conclusion that there was yet a THIRD bill that has still not arrived in my mailbox, that I paid over the phone then and there with a debit card. Sweet Moses. She said she'd send for the notice to get my power back on ASAP and reinstate me as a respectable citizen of the earth who pays their bills.
The fact that I am able to write this and put it online is proof that I have internet and am paying my bills. My only worry now is that Paco may never look at me the same.
After a beautiful month of vacation in the Western Hemisphere including the following:
a divine week under the golden sun on the beaches of Turks and Caicos (absolutely nauseating, I assure you) with my hilarious family (yes, matching baby blue polos with the emblem "Burandt 2008 Holiday" on the right breast pocket were definitely donned for Christmas Eve dinner)...
a refreshing visit to Washington DC over New Year's/my 25th birthday...
a quick, thoroughly entertaining jaunt down to Nashville...
and a nostalgic and replenishing weekend down to Winston-Salem, NC home of the alma mater Wake Forest and a stop-over in Charlotte...
each sojourn complete with precious hours of quality time spent with friends so inexpressibly dear to my heart...
I found myself one week ago today back in Sevilla, Spain where I had a quick, bitter dose of reality.
As we all know, one coolest things about "real life" is paying bills. (For those of you who may have happened upon this musing and therefore might not know me extremely well, read sarcasm.) Let me also assure you, that paying bills in another language and a foreign country where they do things just different enough from the US so as to confuse you does not make it any cooler, but rather, more frustrating (imagine that). In fact... I went all fall waiting and waiting for power bills to reach my mailbox so I could pay them, but they never came.
So when I arrived in my piso (apartment) last Sunday afternoon to find two backed up electricity bills comfortably coated by a substantial mantle of dust and total dishevelment of personal effects, I greeted reality, acknowledged "I don't think we're at Club Med anymore, Toto," and wondered what in the world my roommates could have possibly doing while I was gone that they couldn't some how prevent or at least soften the current hazardous state of our piso. But, I digress. I put myself to work, paid some bills and cleaned.
The following day, Monday, consisted of a day's work followed by an enjoyable lunch and afternoon with my ex-roommate Sylvia. Then, my current roommate Lidia called me with the bomb. She returned to our house that day to find it without power. Curious. Did I know why? No, in fact, I just paid two bills the day before. I tried to problem solve for her from Sylvia's house to no avail, and ended up coming home to a FREEZING piso and putting myself to bed by candlelight, resolving to talk to the doorman in the morning to see if he had any help to offer our predicament.
Tuesday, I woke up as an ice cube and went to pay another community/water bill (yoohoo) to turn in to the doorman as I asked him about our electricity. (See how I know how to work the system?) So I gave Paco the receipt to the communidad and asked if he knew anything about our electricity. That's when he laid it on me. "Yeah, they cut off y'all's power yesterday."
WHAT?
Excuse me? Did I hear you right? They CUT OFF my power? Couldn't be. I hadn't gotten a notice. I paid two bills yesterday online. He suggested I go call and check it all out. She-yeah.
I pick up the phone. Time out... it's wireless therefore doesn't work without electricity... guess I'll call from my cell. Might as well bust out the computer to try to pull up my online proof of payment for our conversation. Time out... there's no internet when the WiFi in the house needs electricity to run.
This is when it hits me. I didn't realize this actually happened to people, like not in the movies.
I thought you had to be like a red-neck, white cracker to not pay your bills and therefore have your power cut off.
Awesome. I AM that red-neck, white cracker.
Well... an hour later which consisted of talking to two different phone operators, getting hung up on, reciting myriads of payment information, and suffering through an extremely painful version of someone singing "the sun will come out tomorrow" while on hold... as if the power company somehow knew that the clients utilizing their help line would be desperate and in need of a little reassurance albeit in the form of cheesy music, not to mention sung in a language that the wide majority of Spaniards don't understand.... we finally came to the conclusion that there was yet a THIRD bill that has still not arrived in my mailbox, that I paid over the phone then and there with a debit card. Sweet Moses. She said she'd send for the notice to get my power back on ASAP and reinstate me as a respectable citizen of the earth who pays their bills.
The fact that I am able to write this and put it online is proof that I have internet and am paying my bills. My only worry now is that Paco may never look at me the same.
posted by Julie Ann at 4:42 PM
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