| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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maybe typing it out will help me think. last january i had come home from a trip to find my wi-fi modem was dead. i called at&t and they told me i had two options: buy a new one for $99 or switch to u-verse at a great introductory price and the modem comes with it free. so i take the u-verse deal. they send a guy out and he hooks me up. later that day i try to make a call on my landline, and it's dead. i call at&t and they send another guy out a couple of days later (after convincing them to put a rush on it since i'm a poor cripple who needs a phone), and he hooks my phone back up. then i find out this knocks out my internet. a third guy comes back and hooks my internet back up. by this time i say fuck it, i can live without a phone. i just ignored any mail from at&t, paid my u-verse online and forgot about it. so yesterday i got a letter from a collection agency saying at&t wants $91 for unpaid phone bills. i found an old bill from april telling me they were going to cut me off. if they had, it hasn't affected my internet access. which of us is actually confused? in my mind, if i don't have a phone then i don't have to pay a phone bill. then again, this wi-fi is plugged into a phone jack. so maybe i was supposed to be paying some kind of phone bill. do i call them and say "look, you cut off my fucking phone. why do i owe you anything except u- verse money?" or was i still supposed to by paying some kind of phone bill. |
the charge removed. And being an existing uverse customer in good standing gives you a smidge of influence. |
them today, but at least i feel less anxiety about it. |
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at&t had my address. the one i've had since 1999. there is one thing that makes me curious. in all that time, somebody must have tried to call me about my bills. didn't anybody notice the calls weren't going through? |
"features" that i did not want but could not opt out of was the inclusion of another phone line. i think i have 5 phone numbers now through various services and really did not need or want another one. i intended to just ignore it and never plug it in but i happened to see a comment that old rotary dial phones work over fios. i didn't think those old phones worked over any kind of voip. i thought it might be cool having a working rotary dial in the house as a conversation piece but almost from the moment i plugged it in came call after call from collection agencies, most of them looking for someone named Alonzo. still other robo calls from Uber demanding that i call the mayor and a bunch of silent calls that i assume are robocalls waiting for someone to answer and say something. it's just a tiresome backwash of calls to a recycled number. i might plug it in to a computer voicemail and collect the calls as an audio museum of sorts, but more likely i'll just put the phone back in the closet. |
currently, I am using the friends internet. |
an old rotary phone. i kind of miss having the phone, but not the phone line. i have a cell phone now, mostly because i was under pressure from my family. they thought i should have one in case i need to call 911 or something like that. it's not in my name and i haven't given out the number to anyone. |
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option (and variations), which i assume is for people without buttons or touch screens. i bought my rotary phone for a dollar. it was being used for display purposes in a store for a retro effect. i wanted to live retro. i remember, decades ago, making the transition from rotary phone to button phones. the first ones were apparently not a great leap from rotary: when you pressed a button--say 5--you could hear the tic-tic-tic-tic-tic. |
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i don't know how it suddenly got to be 2am. last time i looked at a clock, it was 12:34 am. seems like a couple of minutes ago. |
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