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A Lack of Consumer Confidence

My truth is a shambles. But I get at it.
There are, of course, ways in which I
might divert my mind away from a truth
so that I convince myself, at least

momentarily, that the aspect I’m avoiding
isn’t me. To believe that I would never.
I’ve been thinking about this recently,
dealing with customer service at various

companies to which some of the tiny 

amount of income that comes my way

then goes. I’ll be promised a reduction in 

fees, a deletion of a charge, or a way to save 

a buck or two each month by doing this or 

that.  I rarely give in to the sales pitch, and 

when I do, I get bombarded with why I 

rarely give in. An extra charge shows up. 

The ten dollars I was expecting to save per 

month turns out to be an extra twenty that 

appears on each monthly invoice. Or like over 

the weekend, when thanks to a fire that 

flooded out my old apartment building and 

shut down the elevators for a couple of days,

I asked if I could switch the reservations date

for the Zipcar with which I’d planned to move 

my most important items from the old place to 

the new one without getting charged for two 

trips. I had tried to log in to change it before 

the three hours previous to pick-up deadline

but I was having issues with the laptop
internet connection and could not find
a way to switch it before that deadline
arrived. So, I quickly called customer

service, asked if it would be possible to
just switch the date and time of my service
without an additional charge, and I was told
that would be no problem. You can imagine

how the rest of the story goes. Two days later,
after numerous such unexpected expenses
completely undo my budget, I see two $65 

dollar charges on my account. Which is one 

too many, per the man’s promise on the phone.
So I call Zipcar, and am told that the person
with whom I spoke did not promise me what
he actually did. And even if he did, he was

a subordinate that could not have even made
such a promise to me so it’d not count? But he 

did. Thus seems to be the nature of dealing 

with any and all of the entities to which I

pay regular fees. Often, I’m finally able to
have a promised credit or reduction in fees
met, but this almost always involves spending
hours on the phone or in town at some local

spot for whatever service from whom I’m
simply trying to get what was promised.
Fun and games. Such is life. Etc. And I
think of times when money more peacefully

and easily flowed through my hands. To dwell
on such things, even to write these few lines,
can have me reliving the experience in such
a way that I feel defeated, unfocused and

unmotivated. But this is just one of so many
things with which we must deal. If one is me.

All I can do is expect such things and
work like hell on ways to make the entire

process more efficient than it is, less of a
drain on my finances, not to mention my
life. Because living is the thing, right?
Living as well as one can, come what may.