Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

At some point tonight

Money will magically fill up my bank account, which is good, because today was a peanut butter-and-the-last-of-the-bread lunch and 'oh, yes, we do have penne pasta and the pasta sauce hasn't gone bad dinner'.

Tomorrow I need to get some Roquefort cheese for a friend (was going to do it today, but without money of my own, I'd have had to go there, get money, go to the store, go back, drop off cheese, and returned home--all of which would have taken seven hours to do on the bus, with me leaving early at 5 pm and getting home at midnight.) Really. Fortunately he decided tomorrow would be fine.

I'm also going to go to the T-Mobile store and see about trying to get a cell phone. I doubt I'll be able to do, it, frankly. There's a chance, according to a clerk I spoke with on Monday, that since I have been a FlexPay (month-to-month) customer for nearly two years and have never had my service cut off, that I'm on the prequalified list regardless of bad credit. If that's the case I can sign up, get a contract, and walk out with a phone. If not, well, while I could buy the phone and pay for next month's service plus other bills, I'll have no money for two weeks. None. And so that's not going to happen. I'll just have to wait, I guess.

The thing that concerns me is that even though my bill as it's currently done has to be paid by the 22nd of each month, My-Tmobile.com is saying my account is past due and my service is off (today is the 20th). So that may be an issue if they try to run me through T-Mobile's system. Of course, it's probably just a web glitch (I've seen them before, and I've never actually lost service). But it's annoying. I can't even look at the phones while in my account on the web.

If I can get a plan, the phone itself will be free. I'd have to pay $35 and perhaps a deposit of $50. That is doable. I may still get a Comet but if I can, I'll try for an LG Optimus T, which is a step up (and about $100 more without a contract). I'm concerned about the Comet's lower screen resolution meaning some applications might not be able to run.

If I can't then I guess it's pay my normal bill and wait another couple of weeks to get a phone, wasting essentially an entire month's worth of service by not having a phone either the last or next two weeks.

I also got a notice last night that it's time to renew my lease. My rent is going up $16, but I don't think I can really complain, as they didn't raise it a dime last year. Grand total is now $525 for a 750 square foot apartment in a nice neighbourhood, paying just electric, which is probably about dead on normal in Lexington. Signing my lease will mean I get a free carpet cleaning, too, which is good--mine needs it.

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