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Friday, January 13, 2006

Black Friday

Today, I shelled out $150 to injustice. Not to some greedy corporation, or even a mafia don. No, I shelled out $150 in a mercy plea to my state university.

If this had been a private corporation, I could have contested the collections notice without even having a mark on my credit report. At the University, however, you have to contest under duress, because they do the following:
a) put a hold on your student account that freezes financial aid, prevents course registration, and even stops you from graduating.
b) threaten to forward your debt to the state department of revenue, whereby it will be garnished in full from your income and property tax returns.

This is similar to when the United States enters into trade negotiations with Ethiopia.

The whole business was over a bus pass that I was supposed to cancel, but didn't, and that the University failed to cancel when I contacted them two months later. So instead of a cancelled bus pass and a two month bill, I got billed for nine months of a bus pass I didn't even have anymore. Of course, I have no records of my cancellation, since I did it over the phone and the U claims to have contacted me by phone and mail on several occasions after my March phone call (though I received none of these communiques).

The irony is that the bus pass in question was discarded the day I quit my job, so it had long been incinerated or landfilled. I only wish it could have been picked out of the dumpster by some welfare mom and used for those nine months, so I could have heard about it as some scandalous news story instead of feeling like I just paid for a nine-month old piece of trash.

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