(no subject)

Student Assistance called me this morning to tell me that I'm two payments late on my student loans. Well, gee, and here I thought I was still in deferral...

Don't get me wrong, though, the Student Assistance Foundation is a great company. For one thing, they never solicited me to use them -- I looked them up and found them on my own, and meanwhile I STILL get letters from other companies marked with scary things like "SECOND NOTICE of our fantastic loan consolodation offer".

For another, even their phone operators are amazingly well-trained and explained the extremely complicated Student Loans process to me in simple terms, which I need because numbers make me nervous. They apparently sent me a notice that I was leaving deferral -- which never arrived but, given our post office, I'm much more inclined to blame the postal service (our post office is notoriously ineffective at doing its job). And, when I explained I had no clue, they were very kind. "Oh! Well, in that case, let's restart your deferral retroactively. Just go to this part of the webpage and enter that date and then you won't owe anything, and since you're only forty-five days late on your first payment, this isn't going on your credit report."

What I like most, though, is that unlike banks where I have occasionally been overdrawn and credit cards where I have missed a date or paid too early, Student Assistance Foundation telephoned me and actually told me what was going on. So, in short: Despite owing them my firstborn, I love Student Assistance Foundation, and they are kind to people who haven't much clue.

I am categorised as "studiously seeking employment". They are more right than they know.

(no subject)

This is the third time in three months that someone has come to our door, by request, to provide a service and my parents have:

1. not been home,
2. not left notes,
3. not told me someone was coming.

Which of course means that the service people get confused because as far as they know we called them to mow the lawn/check the air-conditioner/estimate fencing costs and here I am saying nope, dunno nothing, can't help, want a lemonade so that you don't have to stand in the blistering heat while I figure out what to do?

This morning a guy comes to the door and asks for Lucky, and I say Lucky isn't here and as far as I know won't be here until five. He says he talked to Lucky five minutes ago and he said to go ahead and come by.

At this point the telephone rings, so Bernard answers, but of course Bernard can't keep a thought in his head for two minutes together so doesn't think to tell my mum that the guy is there, nor does he tell me that the phone call is mum. Mum is calling to warn me that someone is coming to the house (after Lucky called her, instead of me, although I am at the house and she is forty minutes away). Meanwhile, Mum is on a kick to teach Bernard more independence so she doesn't ask to talk to me because she wants Bernard to Learn How To Handle Things.

Bernard takes the message dutifully, while watching tv, and shows it to me after hanging up while I'm still trying to come up with something useful the guy could do while he waits for someone who knows anything to arrive. I told him to have a look at the backyard while we waited, and Lucky finally showed up and handled things, because Lucky actually knows why the guy was called.

But what can you do? It's not as though yelling at Lucky is going to do any good, he thought he'd told me, just like he thought he'd told me the other two times. Yelling at Bernard is no good, he at least answered the phone and I'm not allowed to yell at him anyway. Mum didn't do anything wrong, so it's not like I can yell at her. Yelling at the yard guy would be rude and stupid.

SO I YELL ON LIVEJOURNAL SORRY GUYS.

I'm glad and all that I have a nice place to live and my parents are concerned with proper fencing and air conditioning, but I'd rather live in a studio flat with no air conditioning or backyard than continue to be treated as a four year old while being expected to shoulder the responsibilities of an adult and a parent.

ARGH.