An Incident That Raised My Consciousness About The World I Live In

I have no shame in telling this story. Yesterday the water service to my house was cut off due to an outstanding balance. I us my bank's bill pay service in which most of my bills are mailed (electronically) to my bank and then I am presented with a summary which I pay. My small town's water system doesn't support such an arrangement and thus they send me a physical bill. I had a reoccurring payment set up in which I pay a constant amount each month without carefully scrutinizing this particular bill each month. Due to summertime watering of my lawn this normal amount was not sufficient. I had an unpaid balance that was carried forward for 3 months. I did not pay attention to the cut off threat as it was contained in the normal mailing - which obviously I did not pay attention to.

As I left the house for a late morning meeting I got the surprise of my life when the toilet did not flush. I thought the chain had broken but this was not the case. The service man must have come right before my kids left and turned the service off. They got the last tank full of water out of the toilet.

I went outside to see if they were doing construction in the neighborhood. I looked to see if my neighbor was home to ask him if he had water service. He was not home. I knew I had paid my bill but I looked on my front door and my garage for a "nasty gram". There was none to be found.

I called the water department to ask if there had been a water main break in the neighborhood. After a quick check they told me no but transfered me to the COLLECTIONS DEPARTMENT. "WTHF - My service was cut off?" How did this happen?
I paid my outstanding balance via debit card over the phone. They promised to have the service restored later in the afternoon.

Meanwhile I had to get to my meeting. I had to WASH UP!!! I ended up getting a bottle of spring water out of my garage that I use for my cooler. I used this to refill the toilet so that it can flush. (I'll spare you the details). That was a $5 flush of the toilet - the most expensive I ever made.

I filled up a larger storage container with water from a second water bottle and used that to wash via a wash cloth, to brush my teeth and to shave.

My goal at this point was to insure that the water was restored before my wife got home and then "beat me up".

I received a call from the Water Department that drew me out of a meeting with a major customer. They came by my house to restore service but cut it back off because their "leak detector" indicated that a faucet was opened in the house. I had to call them back and let them know that I did not leave a faucet open and that it was fine for them to restore service. I had already called my wife and asked her to pick up the kids because I would be running late. They told me that they required a person to be home on the second attempt because they could not be responsible for flooding a house due to a faucet that runs all day. Luckily my wife came home before they were closed for the day and they restored service. I now need to determine if indeed I have a leak. Last year my neighbor had a major water leak at the point were the service pipe comes into the house due to 10 years of settling which caused the pipe to separate at the joints. This incident may have brought to light a similar issue with my house. Time will tell.

This incident, as well as my episode last week with DirecTV shows me how interconnected I am with the rapid fire environment that we live in. Last week as I worked to reduce the television channels that we consume in the house - I picked a television package that cut more channels than what their web site had indicated. As soon as I pressed the submit button the television channel that I was watching went off of the air. After I called them to go back to my original service - my kids are not going to do without "Nick" and "Toon Network" - they instantly restored my service. Why have a "Family Package" that does not include all of the cartoon channels?

My lifestyle and standard of living is directly related to the act of sending in money each month.



I have implemented new policies regarding the use of electronic bill payment.

1) I will inspect every line item of every bill that I pay each month. I found a retailer that billed me twice last month for one purchase. Failure to inspect will allow people to get over on me.

2) No more automatic payments - I have set aside time each week to send out a variable payment amount so that I can stay on top of my balances as was the case when I had to write a check. I now have a large positive balance on my DirecTV and natural gas accounts due to overpayment from monthly reoccurring payments. I am not making interest from the money that I am giving them in excess.

3) I purchased Quicken 2008. Where as when I was broke 15 years ago I went overboard tracking every single penny in Quicken - today this web based banking crap has made me lazy. I need to keep better track of my daily spending and form a budget

4) Use my debit card rather than cash for tracking purposes. I can download my debit card transactions. I have to type in my cash transactions.