Non-existant

Ever try to deal with someone who claims you don’t exist? It’s hard, very hard. They have all the advantages and you have none. You don’t exist. That would be okay if it was the IRS and you owed money. That never happens, though. IRS knows you exist if you owe money but maybe not if they owe you.

When I moved I had to give notice to a lot of people and services. The phone company and the newspaper were a problem. The phone company didn’t excite me that much but the newspaper got me worried. If they’re wrong about me, how do I know their not wrong period?

First, the phone company. I went online to change my service from where I live to where I was going to live. It was a simple procedure. That should have sent red flags waving and alarms clanking. It should have but didn’t. They were to be there on a Monday. I got there to find that they were claiming the old number wasn’t in service and never had been. It didn’t exist. I called.

“Sir, we have no record of that service”, the customer relations person told me.

“Oh. In that case you owe me around $4500”, I responded.

“Sir?”.

“If the service never existed, then I’ve been paying you for nothing and I want my money back”.

That caused a pause. Give me money back? Unheard of. I got kicked up the line four times with the money angle.

“Sir, we don’t owe you money. We just don’t have any record of a change of service”, the super-top dog told me.

“But, I do exist?”.

“Sir? Is this a joke? How can I help you?”

“Either by changing my number for this house or refund all the money from the old one, which never existed”.

“Your new number will be on by midnight”.

“Oh, then I do exist?”.

“Sir?”.

My best one is the newspaper, the Charleston World Herald Tribune Post. They didn’t claim I didn’t exist. They claimed my new house didn’t exist.

“Umm, I’m in it. I’m right inside of it. Doesn’t look like the twilight zone here. I think, no, I know it exists”, I told their circulation person.

“Sir, we have no record of that address”.

Gee, this is the newspaper. They know this stuff. Yet, I’m in the place. Someone is wrong and it’s not me.

“I ‘m in the place and it does exist”, I repeated.

“What’s happened is that we probably never delivered there before”, I was told.

“That makes the place non-existent?”

“No, of course not. What do you need?”

“What do I need? Let’s see. You’re the circulation department. I’m a customer. I’d guess I want my paper delivered to my new address instead of my old one. That make sense to you?”.

“As a new address, it will probably take a week to make the change”.

“Come on! I used to deliver papers. You tell the old guy not to deliver and tell the new guy to deliver. This isn’t like doing a brain transplant”.

Actually, it sort of is.