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Now I’m all for spaying and neutering your pets. It goes without saying that the shelters are too full. However, I draw a BIG line at people complaining that feeding stray cats is causing problems with the population. Stray cats will get food wherever they can. I have tons of strays in my neighborhood. Guess what? I also don’t have any MICE in my neighborhood. My neighbors “feed” the strays, usually but tossing out their leftover human food. But you know what? There are only maybe 3 strays that I see regularly. The rest come and go. There’s actually a Siamese stray - gorgeous chocolate point no less - that I’d love to catch and keep, but has obviously never been a house cat because it shies away from people.

Where I live, strays cannot be taken to the local animal shelter and animal control will not deal with stray cats, only stray dogs. They do not catch cats at all. If you happen to catch one and take it to animal control, they’ll take it, but if it doesn’t have a collar on it, they’ll euthanize it straight away. Most people don’t even bother to catch the strays, they just feed them. I only feed them if I have cat food that my cat won’t/can’t eat and that my best friend’s cat won’t/can’t eat. When it’s gone, I don’t feed the strays anymore. Then again, I’ve only seen ONE litter of kittens around my apartment in the 2 years I’ve lived there and there’s ALWAYS been a ton a strays there.

Just a note - I HATE working 10 hours a day. It sucks. I’m ready to drop by the time I’m off work, and truly, I don’t do a whole hell of a lot. All I do is activate radios and listen to people bitch because they can’t remember to call in and update their credit card info when they get a new card and they get shut off because we couldn’t bill them. *rolls eyes*

Add to that being bored stiff due to having anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes between calls and yeah…. pain in the ass. Bleh.

Due to people who can’t keep their mouths shut about things that they really shouldn’t be commenting on, all comments on this blog are deleted and comments are closed on all posts and pages until further notice.

I have a few decisions I am going to have to make in the next week or so, depending on what my paychecks look like over the course of the next month. After finding out that they’re garnishing me for over $1000, and that it looks like the judge is not going to grant me the hearing the paperwork stated I was entitled to, I may be forced to give up both my tables and my laptop. I’m hoping not, since the laptop is my only means of getting on the internet at this point, but if it is, so be it.

The worst of it is, I TRIED to work something out with the company. However, they’re not willing to work with me on a solution. I offered $100 a month, they said only in posted dated checks, all of which would be in their possession. Great, except I don’t have a checking account anymore. I closed it a few months ago. Aside the fact that hello, I don’t have to deposit the check into the account, so what makes them think that would be a solution anyways?

So they said to do a wage assignment through my job, but my employer will not do those. Then they said they’d settle for like $850 cash, lump sum. Sure, and I have that just hanging around. No problem.

I tried again for the $100 a month, reminding them that they can still just start the garnishment if I’m not paying. Again, post dated checks are the only way they’ll let me make those payments. So they aren’t willing to make any sort of attempt to work with me, they’ll only give me options they know will not work for me. They don’t want me to pay them because I’m trying to make good on a debt that I didn’t even know still existed, they want to take the money from me by force. And our lovely legal system is going to let them do it. Go figure. I try to do the right thing, and I am the one who gets punished.

Isn’t that just typical of the American system? I remember being in history class and it being said that one of the reasons that the pilgrims came here was to escape being hounded for and sent to prison over DEBTS. So here we are, 400 years later, using the legal system to hound people and in some cases, send them to prison, over DEBTS.

I did find one point interesting though - the lawyer’s office sent the garnishment paperwork over to my employer but yet doesn’t know who I work for. FIVE people in that office that I have spoken to have all asked me where I work. You sent the paperwork to my employer and don’t know where I work? WTF? How is that possible? Honestly.

This debt that I’m being garnished for, I was told, by the Dr’s office that it’s for, that it was already paid in full and taken care of a long time ago. I’d had surgery, when I was still under 18, on my foot and I’d been told it was paid off not long after I turned 18. Now I’m finding out that it apparently wasn’t. Conveniently this collection agency waited until the doctor’s office was closed for good to try and collect, because I’d have contacted the doctor in question and had them point out that they were paid off over 10 years ago.

Frankly I keep track of what I owe to doctors and hospitals if they can be so kind as to send me a bill. You see, what they charge me after insurance pays varies and frankly, if I don’t get a bill, I can’t pay it. I just got, today, a notice from a collection agency. I file ALL bills from the hospital and doctor’s office in my files and I do not have a single solitary bill from the hospital in question for that amount. Not one. So I called the agency. They gave me the account number from the hospital. I called the hospital and gave them the account number. They confirmed that I did owe it, and I asked why I hadn’t received anything about it. Near as either the hospital or I could tell, my bills (along with other items of my mail) have been going into the wrong mail box at my building. I’m getting a PO Box this next time I get paid so I can start making sure I get all of my mail, because frankly, I’m sick of getting sent to collections because my mailman is an idiot.

As for products, I only have 2 “products” that I pay for and that is this computer and my tables at my apartment and both are quite firmly current on their payments.

I don’t dispute that I should pay what I owe. But frankly there are things that DO get pushed back if I need the money for something else more. If I have rent, groceries, etc to pay for, then I will not pay a medical bill until I have the extra money for it. My expenses to LIVE come FIRST. EVERYTHING else comes 2nd.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I saw a commercial for Worst Week while waiting for Crue to come on Letterman, and the guy said “in a giant plastic diaper.” It made me laugh my ass off and so I just couldn’t resist. LOl

My friend has to take her computer back to the rent-to-own place she got it from. Honestly I fear having to do that because frankly, I might have to if these assholes do the wage garnishment again. I wish they’d at least have the common decency to make a damned attempt at contacting me about a bill. I mean, I get a notice that they’re going to garnish my wages and I don’t even know what it’s for, how much I owe, nothing? BULLSHIT. And of course, I have a schedule that makes calling to find out what’s going on near to impossible because I have to figure out when I can call based on when my breaks are. And let me tell you, the first thing out of my mouth will be, “This needs to be resolved right away as I do not have time to wait, I only have XX minutes for my lunch hour.” I’m not going to play with them. This is going to be the second time they’ve pulled this shit and frankly, I’m not letting them get away with it again.

Last time, I called the number on the paper I got and was told to contact the collection agency. The collection agency told me I had to contact the lawyer’s office. I told them the lawyer told me to contact them and they said since it had gone to wage garnishment, I had to discuss it with the lawyer. The lawyer again told me that I needed to talk to the collection agency. So yeah, if I get that run around again, I’ll go to the courthouse and I’ll file a complaint against them. End of story. Charity isnt’ playing with this shit anymore. Fuck that.

The worst of it is, I dont’ think these assholes realize that I DO NOT have the money to pay whatever it is, or it would have been paid already! Taking money straight from my paycheck may get them their money, but it runs a high risk of getting me evicted and forcing me to starve which I will not tolerate. AT ALL. This bullshit and bullying by this collection agency and lawyer will not continue.