Everyday Randomness

So Ready To Move

I’m seriously so ready to move.  I’ve never had so many problems out of a water company as I have here in this rinky dink little town.  My water has been cut off many times when I know I paid it.  I’ve had receipts showing I paid it, only to find out the cash got applied to another account or was never posted at all.  There have also been times when I forgot to pay it because it’s a small bill that’s easy to forget about, and ya know I deserve a $50 reconnect fee on those occasions.  It’s a slap in the face to remind me to pay my darn bill, but I don’t want to go through this mess when it’s not my fault, and that’s happening more and more.

Hubby paid our water bill two weeks ago.  The bill was for $27 and some change, so I threw a check for $30 even in a deposit envelope, wrote up the deposit slip for him and sent him off to drop it in the overnight box.  I know for a fact he dropped it in the box because he came home and told me all about how the box had been moved.  Normally it’s in front of the door, but since they’re doing construction it was on the other side of the building in the corner.  The office was closed because of the construction so you had to put it in the overnight box or mail it in.

So around 10am I got a pot of water, started some tea, and headed off to take a shower.  I went to turn the shower on, and there was no water…it ran for about 30 seconds and that was it.  I sent Hubby outside to check the meter, and he confirmed it was shutoff and locked at the road.  The f@#kers were probably cutting it off while I was getting water for my tea.

WTF!

I started trying to call the office, and it took me 30 minutes just to get through.  Apparently they only have one phone line, so I kept getting a busy signal.  When I finally got through I started my typical speech about wanting to check to see if there was a water problem in the area or if we’d been shut off for some reason.  She told me she hadn’t received a payment since July.  I told her there was no way as we know for a fact we put the envelope in the drop box, and I’ve got the check stub where I wrote the check.  Since my water is in my Grandpa’s name, I had her check the other accounts in his name to make sure it wasn’t applied to the wrong account.  Nope, she swears it’s not there, and it was never paid.

Ok, so I told her we’d settle this in person, and I was bringing my check stub with me.  I tore my check stub out of my checkbook, and Hubby and I jumped in the car and took off to the water office.  As soon as I walked in the door I saw problem number 1.

We had to weave through a maze of construction equipment and stacks of lumber to a small little room in the back.  4 women were crammed into this little room that looked like a small conference room, and the entire city’s water operation is being ran from this little room.  There were 2 computers, and a desk setup in the corner for the payment area.

Filing cabinets lined one wall, and there was hardly any room to move.  I told the woman who I was, why I was there, and that I had my check stub showing the check and #.  Her response?  You don’t have an official receipt from us, so I can’t do anything about it.  I said how the heck am I supposed to have an official receipt from you if you weren’t allowing us to pay in person?  We weren’t given that option.  You don’t mail receipts for mailed in or drop box payment, and you have to practically beg to get a receipt when paying in person.

We argued over it for a good 10 minutes.  She pulled a stack of manila envelopes out of one of the filing cabinets, dumped them on the desk, and very rudely told me those were all the envelopes that had been placed in the drop box while the office was closed.  While we were there 2 other women came in with the same complaint.

We all agreed our payments had basically disappeared into thin air, and 2 out of the 3 of us had paid with checks.  One of the customers said if they weren’t in the box something happened to them, and made the accusation that someone had removed them from the box.  The woman then started screaming at us that no one had stolen our payments out of the box because she checked the box and removed all payments every night herself.

I was extremely pissed by this point, and I was seriously ready to claw her eyes out.  I started going off on the woman.  I told her I didn’t know what had happened, where our payments had went, or what was going on, but I have a stub showing the check that was written to them for a $30 payment.  I basically have proof that my husband placed the money in the drop box because otherwise he would have no idea that the box had been temporarily moved those few days.  I had made my payment, and I wanted my water back on now.  One of the other customers started screaming at her and cursing up a royal storm, so I stepped back.

Someone else from the office stepped in to try to calm everyone down, and she agreed something didn’t sound right, but there was nothing she could do about it at the time.  If we wanted our water on we had to pay the bill including the fine…which now makes my $27 water bill $97.15, and we had to take our complaint to the magistrate.  We decided to do just that.  We paid our bill, were told our water would be back on within an hour, and went straight to town hall.  I filed a complaint, gave them a copy of my check stub, and we were told they’d look into it because there were other complaints already.  As we were walking out the door one of the other customers was walking in to file her own complaint.

We were out of the water office by 11:30, and home by noon.  At this point (1:20pm) our water still isn’t back on, and Hubby just left to go back up to the office.  He’s going to stay there until someone gets this straightened out.  I’m already pissed about having to cover a $50 reconnect fee for something I paid for…especially since this isn’t the first time this has happened.  The longer I sit here without water the more pissed off I become.   I’m way past boiling.

I seriously have to agree with the woman who said she thought our payments had been stolen.  Otherwise how do so many payments disappear at once?  Something’s got to be up for her to make such a big deal out of it and refuse to even acknowledge my check stub. That woman was way too riled up already…like she’d already dealt with other enraged customers this morning, and the man at town hall confirmed our complaint wasn’t the first he’s taken this morning.

I’m royally pissed, and I want a freakin’ shower…oh AND my money back.

I know how their screwed up water system goes.  Next month I’ll get a bill showing the payment that was applied to my account that I made today for $97.15 plus the $30 that disappeared.  Then, it’ll tell me I have a credit on my account and don’t have a bill to pay.  But wait, if I don’t pay something I’ll get screwed again because the bill will be wrong.  It always is!

It’s Raining It’s Pouring

And yes, the old man is snoring.  Hubby’s stretched out on the couch sawing logs right now, and Bubba’s right next to him doing the same.

You don’t know how happy I am to see all this rain.  Ok, if you read my blog regularly you know exactly how happy I am to see all this rain!  It’s freakin’ awesome!  The garden has turned into a pond, but I don’t care.  Rain is all I care about right now.

It was raining so hard this morning I thought the front yard was going to flood out, but it’s tapered off.  It’s supposed to do this for the next two days, and I’m so happy I want to run around and play in it.  My Grandma called me this morning, and she’s like ya know it’s been so long since I’ve seen a good rain I’m sitting in my sun room watching it as excited as a kid watching snow fall!

That about sums up how I feel about it, too.  Thank God for the rain!

Too Hot For No AC

My little cousin is so excited about getting her first car. She finally found one her mom agreed on and they’ve been at the dealership all evening signing papers and finalizing the deal. She’s so excited she had to come over as soon as they got home to show it off to me. I remember those days!

It’s a 98 Honda Accord, and it’s going to be a great little car for her. She got a really good deal on it, it’s very low mileage, and the motor is in a very good condition. The only problem is that her ac doesn’t work. I remember those days, too. The ac compressor went out in my Saturn SC2 shortly after I got it. I was perfectly fine without ac until my sunroof stopped working at well, and then I decided it had to be fixed immediately. Hubby didn’t mind it, but he also doesn’t understand what it feels like when you’re sweating so hard your hair is sticking to your face and neck and your makeup is running everywhere. I hate that!

I promised her I’d get Hubby to look at it for her, and then we’ll buy the parts to fix it. I’m hoping hers is just the ac compressor as well, but I’ll have to see what Hubby says. He’s feeling so bad right now I didn’t want to drag him outside to deal with it tonight. She can’t drive to school until she gets a parking pass approved anyway, so she’ll have a few days before she really needs to worry about it.

I Wish They’d Open Their Eyes

I’ve heard so many people lately talking about how they’re pissed that we’re running on mandatory water restrictions. Most of them live in huge houses on the lake and drive super nice cars. They’re pissed they can’t wash their cars and run sprinkler system to keep the grass in front of their multi-million dollar homes green. It pisses me off that these people just don’t get it.

Lake Keowee is being held at 5 feet under, but it’s about to be dropped to 7 ft under for maintenance. This will add some water back to Lake Jocassee. There’s a government contract that says Lake Jocassee’s water level can’t drop more than 30 feet below normal. Well right now it’s sitting at 27 feet.

Lake Hartwell is down 15 feet, and it’s falling at a rate of 1 foot a week. A lot of people think no big deal. We’ll eventually see rain again, and the lakes will eventually fill back up. That may be true, but the drought situation doesn’t just cause the lakes to drop. It effects people and the environment much further on down the line.

The fact is these three man made lakes support so much more than just our area and a nuclear power plant. They support river basins that flow through South Carolina and Georgia. Colder water from Jocassee is released into Keowee to maintain the correct temperature for the water pumped into the power plant. Water from Jocassee and Keowee are released into Hartwell, and that flows down throughout the state into smaller streams and rivers. If the lakes are gone, those streams and rivers lose their water source.

I read an article today on Upstate Today that shows how major cities in South Carolina are also effected by the lake levels.

Greenville, in the Saluda River Basin, obtains its water from the Table Rock and Saluda reservoirs. In 1969, Greenville obtained an interbasin transfer permit from the state, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) and Duke Energy. That permit allows the city to draw up to 150 million gallons a day from Keowee if they need it. It currently draws 20-30 million gallons a day.

Keowee is in the Savannah River Basin, and every gallon drawn by Greenville is a gallon taken and not returned to downstream neighbors.

Before these people pitch a hissy fit over the fact they can’t have a perfectly green lawn in their front yard, they need to look at the facts. We’re in an extreme drought. Yes, it sucks. No, you shouldn’t get special treatment just because you think your grass is important. Look at how the situation effects everyone, and stop being so selfish. The water restrictions are there for a reason, and without them we’ve got a whole lot more to lose than just a few dead lawns.