Big Brother Utilites

When did I last see a phone booth?  I can't remember.  The nice little corner phone booth is fading into the past, but then, it had it's benefits.  

I first ran into the strangeness of today's services when the post office renamed all the roads and called them all by numbers.  Now I don't know how to give directions to my house, since I don't know the road names.  The road I live on was named after my husband.  It is now a number.  UPS refused to deliver packages to my home after that because there was a lot of confusion at the post office about the new addresses, and they insisted my house and my road didn't exist.  Therefore, due to "The Unpatriotic Act" UPS was banned from delivering packages.  

Then one day I began to get annoying phone calls asking for a person who didn't live there.  I finally claimed to be this person to see why they used my number, since the caller would never tell me, although she called me constantly.  It was a lawyer calling to collect on a debt and she started to berate me and threaten me.  I finally told her I was not the person she was calling.  She shouted, "Do you realize you have just committed a federal offense?!" I shouted back, "Well, why don't you just come over here and arrest me?!" 

And so it was that I decided to have my phone number changed.  Oh no!  Not so fast.  They had to talk to my husband!  I remembered this talk before when I had the phone service turned on.  I gave them my name and social and said I wanted it listed under my husband's name.  I gave them his name and social.  Oh yeah, and birth date!  Fine.  As I attempted to continue with the call they told me that they wouldn't tell me the phone number or when it would be turned on because it wasn't my phone.  Oh.  "I'll get him."  So then I changed to my Mae West voice, "Hellooo, this is James." Why did I get this runaround?  The phone company has taken it upon themselves to, in an abundance of caution, become the spies that ferret out all the terrorists trying to get phone service.  Or change their phone numbers because of annoying calls.  Can I just say, this isn't about terrorists?  This is about every step of our lives being controlled.  

And may I also add, without a phone booth around, there's no way to skirt the all powerful Ma Bell about where you're making a call from.  

So now what?  I was at my mother's house and she left to run some errands.  There was a knock on the door, and when I opened it there was an imposing man standing so close that I jumped back, being startled.  He said he was there to disconnect the water.  Really?  I told him we would put a check in the mail right away, and he left without disconnecting the water.  He first asked me to sign a document saying that I had been warned.  Great.  

I decided to pay the water bill, and saw the mail in the box when I went to the mailbox.  There was the electric bill.  Maybe I better pay that too.  I called their number and first tried to talk to a person.  No.  OK.  I managed to pay by credit card to their teleprompter.  Then I tried again to reach a person and finally managed to reach a doozy, whose problem seemed to be that they just didn't want to do their job and at the same time push people around.  I told it that I wanted to arrange to pay the electric bill automatically out of my credit card.  Whose name is one the account?  Are you that person? They will have to come into the office (in the next county) and fill out our form.  Etc.  Hmmm.  Rather than continue to argue with it, I called again on the 800 number and said that I wanted to pay my parent's electric bill automatically from my credit card, because I was concerned that they were not paying their bills regularly.  'I'M THE SAME PERSON YOU JUST TALKED TO!" it shouted at me accusingly.  "I ALREADY TOLD YOU NO!"  I was trying to make this happen without my mother finding out to avoid embarrassing her.  "WHO ARE YOU???" it demanded to know.  "Why can't you send a form to this address?" I asked it.  What happened to my special phone voice?  I forgot.  

Why is the electric company going insane?  Why are the phone company, the water company, the post office and UPS losing their minds?  They all claim I could be a terrorist and they are out to find the terrorists in their homes.  

Are they really trying to find terrorists?  I don't think so.  I think we're becoming a police state, and the utilities are the enforcers.  They want to know where everyone is at all times.  

Just then my mother came back, and I told her about the water company coming over to turn off the water.  "Well, I put the check in the mail.  They should receive it tomorrow.  Anyway, I thought I had until the 15th to pay the bill.  I just got it a few days ago."  If I had any energy left I would call the water company and find out why they decided to turn off the water when the water bill wasn't even late.  

Oh, I'm not done.  Did you know that in several states, the state has decided that they own all the water?  ALL the water, including rainwater.  Therefore it is illegal to collect rainwater.  In some states it is illegal to reside in a house without electricity and water, but it must be from the electric and water companies.  Just because you have electric from solar panels or batteries, and/or water from a well doesn't count.  Why is this?  So terrorists can't skirt around the problem.   See?  No.