Just Taking It Day by Day

Just went to the cemetery again to check and see if Carli's bench had made it yet. No real big surprise I guess that it still wasnt there. But I was rather excited to see a butterfly visiting her bush!! It was a really pretty black butterfly with orange circles on it. I loved watching it!! I am hoping the next time I go out there, that there will be another butterfly. I am going to see if I can take a picture of it!!

I learned also that it really does pay to not be a bitch when calling the phone company to complain. I ended up being on my cell phone for 45 minutes with the lady at the phone company. We got a letter telling us that our bank returned our payment to them. I called my bank on Thursday to ask if they showed where it had been run thru and sent back. They saw no such record. They told me there was more than enough in the account the day the payment was made. So, Thursday morning I called the phone company. The lady told me she was going to have to do some checking and call me back. No problem.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. My MIL called my cell phone and asked me what was wrong with the home phone. I asked her why? She said it was disconnected. I was not very happy at all. So, I take my mom up to her dentist appt, and decided I might as well call and see what was going on. I told the lady that my phone had been disconnected and that I was calling to check on it. I told her all about my previous phone call the day before. I told her we really didnt want to have to pay the $25 return check charge, since it hadnt even been sent to our bank. She said well, I could have a bank officer fax them a letter telling them that, and that I might be able to get it reversed. I said ok that I would do that, but you could tell I wasnt very happy. Then I asked her if we were going to have to pay the $25 for the reconnect fee. She said yes that we would have to. I explained to her that I hadnt paid it the day before cuz I was waiting for the lady to call me back with what she found out. She said there was no noting in the file that the other lady was going to call me back. I politely asked if there was anyone that I could talk to about getting that charge reversed. She said no, that we would have to pay it. So, I tell her ok....well, either way I need to pay my bill to get my phone back on. She informs me I cant pay by check, but would have to pay by debit card or credit card. I laughed...said fine, I would pay by debit card, but that it came from the SAME account that the online check came from. She laughed and said that I knew that and she knew that...she gets the payment processing and then ask me what kind of program we have on our computer. I told her, well, when I made the payment I had Windows XP, but now I have Vista. She was asking me how I liked it...yada yada. Then we start talking about internet service. She has DSL thru Embarq (the phone company) and I told her that we were thinking about getting that and getting rid of our cable Internet.

She asked me for the number to my bank, and asked me if I minded if she called my bank officer to inquire about whether the charge had gone thru my bank. I gave her the number and she got back on the line and told me that she was going to get the $25 charge for return check credited to my account. We kept talking, and she heard Mikaela in the background. She asked me how old my little ones were. I told her how old all of them were, including Carli. I ended up telling her all about Carli's story. She cried. She told me that she had lost a baby at 6 months gestation, about 41 years ago. It was a really amazing conversation!!

We ended up going ahead and getting us signed up for the DSL. She told me that she was going to make sure that our account was credited the $25 reconnect fee too!! And that there is a $15 connect fee for the service, and a $14.95 shipping and handling charge for the modem that they would send us. But, she gave us a $30 credit for that!

I was so excited!! Here at the beginning of the call I was thinking, Maybe I should really push to get my thoughts across....and instead, I remained my nice, calm self. And it paid off!! In the end, it ended up saving me $80.00!! So, I guess the moral of this story is being nice does pay off!!