A Mighty Fine Life

So today I spent almost $500 on clothing. That's the most I've ever spent on clothing at any one time in my whole life.

Here's the thing: I'd love for that to have been frivolous or fun, but it was, in fact, necessity. Random pink dots have appeared on a lot of my clothes lately, meaning, I think, that I washed a pen with them. WHOOPS. And that's stuff I didn't spill coffee or other staining things on. Or rip. Or... Well, let's just say I'm very hard on clothing. I'm a klutz, and I'm not really into clothing or fashion, so a lot of what I buy is cheap to begin with, and thus easily destroyed, and I am Becky: Almighty Destroyer of Clothing. So. I checked my bank account, made sure the rent had already gone through, figured how much I'll have in bills this month, and actually unclenched my usually-tight wallet and let myself buy the stuff I actually needed.

$170 of it was just on bras, underwear, and socks. I am glamorous, I tell you what. Aside from that, I got a bunch of camies -- you can never have too many camies, right? -- and a few nicer shirts and sweaters. And a dress. It has polka dots. This brings the grand total of dresses I own up to two, by the way. Seeing as how I'm okay on pants, between my few pairs of jeans and a couple pairs of cords I've bought over the last few months, that means I basically now have a new wardrobe.

So I did the mature, adult thing and actually went through everything else I owned, tossed what's stained (even when it pains me -- goodbye, adorable green hoodie, I hardly knew ye) and doesn't fit well or I just didn't like, and put everything away. My entire wardrobe, such as it is, fits in two plastic drawer sets of the kind you might send your kid off to college with to store papers. SIGH. I have a beautiful dream of someday having saved enough money to buy a new bed -- trust me, also a necessity -- AND a dresser, so I'll have a real one, AND a bookshelf, because I have books all over my floor and my bookshelf is already packed. These are my wild fantasies, folks.

I'm mostly just proud of myself for actually feeling okay about the money I spent. I decided awhile ago that I'd actually like to start dressing, well, slightly nicer, and have been working hard on really feeling okay about caring about that. I don't know, maybe that sounds stupid, but it's really never been anything even on my radar, and I've always felt kind of weird and guilty about caring about how I look. So I've not only never done it, but I've always actively avoided it. So that I was able to go out, find things I liked, and not hang them back up just because they cost more than $20, is a big step for me.

I mean, it comes at a stupid time, economically speaking, but still.

In other news, it turns out I can make a decent omelette! That's pretty exciting.

And typing this has set off my wrists, so peace out, y'all. I'll check in again in a few days, maybe.

So a few weeks ago I got a weird notice from T-Mobile saying they noted my account had an address change.

Funny thing: I don't have a T-Mobile account.

First call: I didn't think much of it, but found the piece of paper while cleaning yesterday and figured I should probably call and make sure that there was nothing hinky going on. So I called, and a very nice customer service lady looked me up by name, address, and SSN, and found no account. The letter I had didn't have an account number, so there was no other way for her to check that out, but I didn't appear to be in their system at all. Cool beans.

Today, going through the towering stack of mail Rachel and I keep on a table in the front hall looking for things like bills to be paid, I found, sure enough, a bill from T-Mobil. For $444 dollars. UM, WHUT. This one had an account number and listed three phone numbers, which was odd. So I called T-Mobile again. Hold for five minutes.

Second call, first department: I talked to a customer service rep who looked up the account, declared it to be a monthly flex account, and transferred me to the monthly flex department. Hold for three or four minutes.

Second call, second department: A flex rep looked up the account, said, "Whoa, hang on, this isn't yours? Let me look into this. Can I put you on hold?" Hold for two minutes. She came back on and said, "That's really weird, I'm not sure how it happened, but I'd better transfer you to the fraud department. But they aren't open today, so it'll go to a menu, choose the option to leave a voicemail, and someone will call you back first thing Monday, okay?" Okay. She also gave me the number, in case I was disconnected somehow, and tried to transfer me, putting me on and off hold for a few minutes before she finally got it. Or so she thought. Because in fact, I was disconnected.

Third call: I got a voice menu asking if I would like to know the fraud department's hours, or if I'd received an erroneous charge on my credit or debit account (I hadn't, just a paper statement asking me for money), or if I'd like to talk to a representative. I chose the third and was transferred to the main customer service line. I hung up, because I'd already been that route -- twice! -- and they weren't who I needed.

Fourth call, first department: I called fraud again, and chose option two. I got a recorded message saying I should take it up with my bank and have them initiate a fraud investigation thingy. Press 1 for more information. I pressed 1, and they gave me an emergency number to talk to a representative right away. What the hell. I took it. Three minutes of hold.

Fourth call, second department: The emergency number? Right back to standard customer service! Lacking any other options, I took it, and talked to a very apologetic woman. I explained about the circle I'd gone around in, she looked up the account, and then very apologetically told me that, really, she can't access information about flex accounts, and she was reeeeally sorry, but yeah, she needed to transfer me to flex again. Five minutes of hold.

Fourth call, third department: I talked to a guy in flex and told him the whole story. It took him a good five or six minutes to figure out who the heck I'd been calling and how I'd ended up with him, because apparently the fraud menu I heard is not the one I was supposed to get, seeing as how I hadn't been asked to leave a voicemail and have anyone call me back. But anyway, he asked, why was I sent there? It was a monthly account with no actual charges going through to my bank, so while it was definitely weird, he could just cancel the damn thing. I asked him to please do that. He put me on hold for a couple minutes to make sure the details were all in order, then laughed looking through a menu of reasons why he was canceling the charges. It turns out, "Because this is not a real account and none of these calls ever happened," is not an option! Gosh.

He put me on hold to figure that out, and then afterwards I double- and triple-checked with him. The account had never actually been activated, and so he had no idea how bills were sent out, or how calls were allegedly made. They had my address from my post office change-of-address form, but no idea how the account was opened in the first place. But: the account is closed, the charge is canceled. He said they may automatically send me another final notice about this bill, but to disregard it. (I asked if I called about a final notice and said the nice customer service man in the flex department said just not to pay it if that would be a problem, and he said he'd make a note on the account that, yes, he said I should not pay it at all, and if anyone else calls and tries to re-open the account, that it was fraud and should be reported immediately.) But it will never be reported on my credit or anything, it's canceled, and I should be totally good to go.

WE SHALL SEE, WON'T WE?

Actually, as frustrating and stupid as the whole thing was, every single person I talked to was very nice and apologetic, and as helpful as he/she was able to be. Except for the fraud voice menu, which not only didn't give me the options it was supposed to, it hung up on me. The humans, though. All very kind!