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Feb. 24th, 2006 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2So today I paid my bills, and I was happy about that. Then before I left for work I went to empty the trash. The trash bin is located nearby, with a solid wood fence of about 6.5 to 7 feet high all the way around it. The door has a latch, and is never locked. I opened the door, emptied my trash, and heard the door shut and latch right behind me.
This meant that I was locked inside with the trash bin. :p
I spent a couple of minutes trying to figure out how to unlatch the door, but it's basically impossible to do from the inside. I tried to push against the door a couple of times, but it was latched securely. Someone walked right by the door and I yelled at them but failed to get their attention.
I climbed on top of the dumpster but realized that jumping from 7 feet up was a bit higher than I wanted to jump, and since the outside of the fence had no purchase for my feet, I wasn't able to work out how to swing over and dangle from the fence and drop down that way. I climbed back down on the inside, then went over to the latched door and threw my shoulder into it two or three times.
It came apart real good. ^_^ So, I broke the door to the trash container. I didn't really feel sorry as I didn't have any other choice. Nobody was even paying attention to me so I guess despite the yelling and climbing about and the sound of splintering wood (well -- mostly I think just nails being pulled free of the wood, I don't think any wood actually split, and it probably won't be hard to fix again) -- I think I got away scott free. It did make me think about how criminals can do things in broad daylight with lots of people around and nobody even notices.
Not that I really felt like a criminal, but anyway...
Afterwards I went and mailed my bills and grabbed the mail and went to work. Later I checked the one piece of mail that I'd recieved -- my first phone bill on my new phone line -- and was wondering how much it might be. Turns out it was for $138.00! I examined it and saw that they'd charged me $31.00 for installation, $7.00 more for intallation of my call waiting service (cost me $3.00 a month, but $7.00 to "install" ... whatever). There was another charge for pro-rated use of special services or something -- I couldn't really figure out what that was about -- but anyway, further down I saw that they'd charged me for all of those things a second time.
I called the phone service and once they'd knocked off those services my bill was $41.00 cheaper, but it was still a nice $92.00 bill. $18.00 of that was for MCI's long distance, which included exactly one long distance phone call to my parents in Longview, which was a phone call of less than 2 minutes because they were not home at the time and I only left a message. When the Qwest lady asked me about switching to their own long distance, promising much cheaper rates and lower monthly fees, I was quite ready to say yes.
That took quite a while to accomplish. In order to satisfy federal regulations they had to transfer me to an independent service that basically asked me questions to confirm that I was who I said I was, that I had the right to change the long distance on that phone number, and that I really wanted to switch from MCI to Qwest.
Le sigh!
This meant that I was locked inside with the trash bin. :p
I spent a couple of minutes trying to figure out how to unlatch the door, but it's basically impossible to do from the inside. I tried to push against the door a couple of times, but it was latched securely. Someone walked right by the door and I yelled at them but failed to get their attention.
I climbed on top of the dumpster but realized that jumping from 7 feet up was a bit higher than I wanted to jump, and since the outside of the fence had no purchase for my feet, I wasn't able to work out how to swing over and dangle from the fence and drop down that way. I climbed back down on the inside, then went over to the latched door and threw my shoulder into it two or three times.
It came apart real good. ^_^ So, I broke the door to the trash container. I didn't really feel sorry as I didn't have any other choice. Nobody was even paying attention to me so I guess despite the yelling and climbing about and the sound of splintering wood (well -- mostly I think just nails being pulled free of the wood, I don't think any wood actually split, and it probably won't be hard to fix again) -- I think I got away scott free. It did make me think about how criminals can do things in broad daylight with lots of people around and nobody even notices.
Not that I really felt like a criminal, but anyway...
Afterwards I went and mailed my bills and grabbed the mail and went to work. Later I checked the one piece of mail that I'd recieved -- my first phone bill on my new phone line -- and was wondering how much it might be. Turns out it was for $138.00! I examined it and saw that they'd charged me $31.00 for installation, $7.00 more for intallation of my call waiting service (cost me $3.00 a month, but $7.00 to "install" ... whatever). There was another charge for pro-rated use of special services or something -- I couldn't really figure out what that was about -- but anyway, further down I saw that they'd charged me for all of those things a second time.
I called the phone service and once they'd knocked off those services my bill was $41.00 cheaper, but it was still a nice $92.00 bill. $18.00 of that was for MCI's long distance, which included exactly one long distance phone call to my parents in Longview, which was a phone call of less than 2 minutes because they were not home at the time and I only left a message. When the Qwest lady asked me about switching to their own long distance, promising much cheaper rates and lower monthly fees, I was quite ready to say yes.
That took quite a while to accomplish. In order to satisfy federal regulations they had to transfer me to an independent service that basically asked me questions to confirm that I was who I said I was, that I had the right to change the long distance on that phone number, and that I really wanted to switch from MCI to Qwest.
Le sigh!
