The electric company sucks

I've been working 60-75 hour weeks lately. Many things in my life have been put on hold, namely paying bills. Tuesday, it struck me that my electricity was gonna be turned off if I didn't pay the bill toot sweet. The shut-off date was Wednesday, so I paid the bill on Tuesday night at the kiosk at Reasor's.

I left work at a normal time Thursday night. I went home, got my laundry gathered, fed the cat, and headed to the laundromat. I did this in a rush and didn't bother to turn on a light when I was home. If I had, I would've known that my electricity was shut off. This discovery was made when I got home at 7:30. I called the number on my bill and was told that the kiosk I paid the bill at wouldn't clear through the billing office for three business days after the payment was made. My only choice would be to pay the bill again over the phone or through one of their payment offices.

I tried their over the phone payment number, but the payment couldn't go through because the zip code I provided didn't match the one in their system. I could've done a check by phone, but my checkbook was somewhere in my apartment, in a lot of clutter, in the dark.

I called the first number again and got an address for the one payment station that was still open. They told me it was at Skelly and Garnett. I couldn't find the place, so I called them back again.

At this point, my phone battery went dead. I had no car charger, but I had one at the office I could use. I called the number back on a land line from my office, and clarified the address and punched it up on Mapquest. As it turns out, it was at Lewis and Skelly...fifteen miles from where they initially sent me. It was 8:35, and they closed at 9:00.

I haul ass to this place, which was a little convenience store that obviously never gets much business. I screech into the parking space, run in and find no one inside the store. After a minute or so, a very old middle eastern man enters the store...and he turns out to be the cashier! I give him the bill stub and enough cash to cover it. He grabs the cash and starts to count it. At this moment, it becomes clear that he suffers from Parkinson's Disease.

Now, I'm not gonna make fun of his disease, but it was such a movie moment. I was in such a rush, and suddenly, my fate rested on a man who took a minute and a half to steady his hand enough to grasp the first bill in the stack. I could hear the up-tempo music score get stopped by the sound of a scratching record.

It took fifteen minutes to complete the transaction. I thanked the man profusely. He responded with a dirty look, "You know, I've got bills to pay, too!" and shifted his eyes over to the drink cooler.

I kept my cool, telling him that I just wasn't thirsty. I thanked him again and left. But what I wanted to tell him was, "Thanks for helping me get my electricity turned back on, but fuck you for trying to guilt trip me into buying something, you prick. I'm sorry you opened a shitty convenience store on a one-way access road before the offramp, but I've had a pretty shitty night myself, and I'm going home."

I stopped at the store on my way home and bought a wind-up alarm clock, because i no longer trusted anything that ran on electricity. I went straight to bed and thankfully woke up on time to get to work.

So, I double-paid my electric bill. One less thing to worry about for the next couple months. Everything was back to normal by lunch on Friday.