Money don't get everything, it's true

You know what comes after that: What it don't get, I can't use, which isn't entirely true, in my estimation, because there's one very important thing that money do get. The most important thing, even: peace of mind.

I tried to explain my sudden, nail-biting stress to my colleague, Karen, over a pint at The Loft the other night. She was great — she listened, and she sympathized, but then she had to leave. So I called first Nadine, then Sparky, to see if they wanted to join me.

The Loft is my local, now, like The Banknote used to be. I've ordered another Stella Artois, a beer that in Canada is my despised last resort, but that here in California is often the only non-American, non-British beer available on draught, and until (and unless) either (or both) Nadine or Sparky arrive, I'll tell you about what happened, Gentle Reader.

You should know that last week I got an email from my agent in Toronto telling me she'd found a tenant for my condo. Not just any old short term tenant, mind you, but someone who, god bless them, wanted to take it for a year A WHOLE YEAR, beginning July 1, and who was willing to pay the full price, which means this: it's enough to cover the agent's monthly percentage; it's enough to cover all the utilities, even if they crank the A/C and open the windows in the middle of July; it's enough to cover the increase in my mortage payments that I'm going to be hit with next month; it's even enough to provide a few hundred dollars extra at the end of the year, in case I need to buy a new microwave, say, or get someone in to fix a loose curtain rod.

What it means, simply put, is peace of mind for a year.

So you can understand, I hope, why I was so relieved. Why I was positively celebratory. Why I had started to MAKE PLANS for the summer.

(For the last two months, every time someone asked me, "So, what are your plans for the summer?" I wanted to scream, I HAVE NO PLANS BECAUSE PLANS INVOLVE SPENDING MONEY AND I CAN'T SPEND ANY MONEY UNTIL I KNOW I DON'T NEED TO SAVE EVERY PENNY IN CASE I NEED TO CARRY MY CONDO FOR THE SUMMER SO FUCK OFF AND DON'T ASK ME THAT QUESTION!)

I planned to go home for the last week of June.

I planned to see my dad.

I planned to go to Kickass Karaoke.

I planned to plant flowers in the bare pots on my rooftop patio.

I planned to spend a week IN MY HOME, sleeping IN MY BED, for the last time for a year.

I planned to enjoy every minute of my time in the place I think of as Home, capital H. It would be the best vacation ever, and it would make having to spend the next twelve months in a foreign country, living with foreigners, where everything from the rules of the road to the peanut butter is, well, foreign, bearable.

So I booked my plane ticket, then switched to my email to collect my confirmation, and there it was, a message from my agent saying that the tenant had changed his mind and he wouldn't be taking my condo after all.

* * *
There's no happy ending to this story, at least not yet, so I'll give it a day or two before I tell you the rest.

Everyone knows, it's Slinky!

Do you remember the Slinky song?

Do you suppose that's what these people were referring to, in some cryptic way, when they wrote,

"These variety kinds of Mini Series are designed for your home saving and slinkiness."

Let's do the time warp

Every so often — actually, quite often — life in America makes me feel like I've gone back in time. Sometimes it's twenty years, like when I read about how the California legislature is considering (only considering, mind you) a law that will make it easier for women to not have to change their names when they get married. Sometimes it's five years, like when I go into the bank and see people still filling out those tiny slips of paper. Today, it was ten years. Back to the early days of the Internet, when companies were just beginning to figure out what purpose real-time mass distribution of information might serve.

The note in my daybook says to pay my cable TV bill online today — and yes, I use a paper book, I carry it around in my bag, along with my paper notebook, and yes, I appreciate the irony, Gentle Reader, but I don't have thousands of customers, and I don't encourage them, on my website, to sign up for online billing. I'm all for saving trees and saving stamps, though, so last month I did just that on the Comcast website.

My first bill, for the first month and the installation (yes, I just got cable. Heck, I just got a TV, remember?), was due May 14. I paid it online, $45.35, on the Comcast website. The transaction was posted through my bank on May 16, but that's another rant. The current rant is about Comcast.

Last week I received an email message reminding me that my next Comcast bill was due June 3, so today I logged in to their website to pay my bill, and saw:

Amount due: $60.57

Well, that's just not right, I thought, and I knew I was right in thinking it. So I clicked on "view bill" to see the details:

Previous Balance $ 45.35
Payment(s) $ .00
Comcast Cable Television $ 14.07
Taxes, Surcharges and Fees $ 1.15

Payment Due Date 06/03/07 $ 60.57

I called Comcast's customer service.

"Hi. I'm on your website, trying to pay my bill, but the account information your system is showing me is not correct. I paid the previous balance of $45.35 on May 14."

"Well, yes, sometimes there's a delay on the Internet."

"I understand that, but this was more than two weeks ago. The Internet isn't that slow."

"Well, you see, it's showing you your current statement. If you were to get a paper statement in the mail...."

"But I don't get a paper statement in the mail."

"Yes ma'am, I understand, but if you were to get a paper statement in the mail..."

"But I don't get a paper statement in the mail. Your company encourages customers to sign up for online billing, to not receive paper statements in the mail, and I'm all for that, so I did that, and now I'm trying to use your online system and it's giving me incorrect information."

"You're not letting me finish."

"All right, go ahead and finish."

"If you were to get a paper statement it would have been mailed just after your last due date, and since your payment hadn't posted yet, it would still be showing on your next bill, the one that's due June 3."

"Right. I understand that. But the key point here is that this is not a paper statement we're talking about, it's your online system. It should be showing me current information. When I log in, it shouldn't tell me I owe you $60 when in reality I owe you $15. The information it's giving me is wrong, and that forced me to call you, taking up company resources that online billing is supposed to avoid."

"There's nothing I can do about it, that's the way our system works. It's basically the same as the paper statement."

"That's ridiculous. Then what is the point of offering online billing?"

We went around a few more times after that, but you get the gist.

* * *
Back in 1998 I worked for Chapters Online, Canada's first national online bookstore. I was the public relations manager, and spent my days dealing with the press. At that time there was a fear among consumers about using their credit cards online. I spent a great deal of time repeating our key message, "It's no more dangerous to use your credit card online than it is anywhere else." The other communications challenge I faced was countering the insane perception that "Canada is two years behind the U.S. in e-commerce."

I learned a valuable lesson about the news media; that if a phrase is repeated often enough in writing, it becomes the truth, regardless of what the truth actually is. That phrase, about Canada being behind in e-commerce, became a mantra in the press, despite the fact that it was patently ridiculous. Canada was the first country in the world to offer online banking (in 1995) and to have an airline that allowed consumers to buy tickets online (in 1996). Canada has always been a world leader in communications. We invented the telephone, for fuck's sake! We invented the first Internet search engine. We invented the fucking Blackberry. Since 1994, every year that some analysts publish data about Internet adoption rates among consumers and businesses, Canada is number one. Today — heck, for the last five years — I don't know anyone under the age of 50 in Canada who doesn't bank and pay all their bills online. Most people I know don't even own chequebooks any longer.

Yet here, in the country that harbours the delusion that it's the most advanced nation in the world, there are still signs in stores that explain the circumstances under which they will accept a cheque. When I tell that to Canadians, they don't believe me.

America, you do great P.R., I'll give you that.