I suck at paying my own bills, which is ironic because I earn my pay managing money. Consequently, my bills tend to pile up untended with vital payments set up as automatic bank withdrawals, thanks to the Internet.

SOOOO, imagine my surprise when I look my Visa statements over and have AOL service charges since November. WHAT THE FUCKING CHRIST IS THIS SCAM that feels like a bad prank?

I’m on the phone now. I’ve already called one customer service number and got a recording to try back during business hours. Then, I tried another, and reached India. A nice young Indian man, transferred me to the number that could definitely help me out. That led to a nice young woman who was going to help me set up my new account registration. Ahh, no. Another nice young woman earnestly told me that she could help me. I explained again that I had not signed up for AOL and I am getting billed. She transfers me to exactly the right department who can help me. That was the longest wait between people. Now, another young man, Alwen, I think might be his name. They all have melliflous names that they repeat and sound like Elvish in the Lord of the Rings.

Hmm, Alwen might be kind of a prick. Because the credit card is mine, and the sign up name is dee-rob, it’s mine, this account that I have never set up on any computer I have ever used. FUUUUUUCCCCKKKK. What Alwen can offer me is the next four months of my AOL service for free to compensate me, since I have called.

Alwen, I don’t use your service. I don’t need your service. AOL BLOWS, Alwen, and even if it didn’t, dial up? You want me to use fucking dial up?

Alwen is insistent that is the best compensation. I have waited too long there is nothing he can do. He will sign me up for my four free months. No, Alwen, no you won’t. I do not accept this solution. I do not use your service, I will not be using your service ever, fuck your damn free months, cancel me NOW. He is reluctant, I will get no compensation, because I have opened this account. He knows, because it has my name on it.

Maybe in a fugue state, heady with the dreams of the early days of the Internet before SPAM, before ‘blogs, when innocence was in my grasp, I slept walked my way into an AOL account. One that I do not use, that I cannot use unless I install software that is on none of my computers. Is it possible? Is this how middle age is mugging me and my memory, throwing me into a stranglehold of lost thoughts?

FUCK YOU AOL, YOU WILL NOT WIN. CANCEL ME, MOTHERFUCKERS. I WILL CALL YOUR FRAUD OFFICE AT 800 307 7969 AND REFERENCE CANCELLATION CONFIRMATION #944220238.

I type it here, because my mind is soft with holes of slipped memory. I cannot be trusted.

I think one of the good things about outsourcing is the melody and calm of disembodied voices that will be deliverying shitty news about a shitty product; information that will not help you. It is so much better to be told to fuck yourself in fluid tones of overly formal English that lilts over the phone line.