The Slob BlogBecause slobs need love too!

Bills are an area in which many slobs struggle.  There is nothing particularly difficult about writing a check, licking a stamp, and sticking a bill in the mail, but there is nothing particularly interesting about it either.  Bills blend in with the rest of the pile of junk mail, and there is no question what they contain, so why open them?

All we see is an envelope that does not contain any of the mail slobs care about: a birthday card with cash, a personal letter, or items purchased from a catalogue. Companies are often coming out with commercials that claim it is exciting to open their bills, because of all the huge savings.  But slobs don’t think about savings, because we rarely notice or contemplate the amount on the checks we write.  We just know that it is money that we are not going to get to keep or spend on something interesting.  We when we think of exciting savings, we think about how much money we save by not opening our bills at all.  If utilities such as phone services and cable television really want to make opening their bills exciting, they should send us little surprises like:

• Cash
• Candy
• Movie tickets
• Romantic poetry
• The phone numbers of their cutest employees
• And space pens that write even when they’re upside down

If you handle money the same way I do, you’ll probably gonna’ want to check out these tips for how to deal with calls from bill collectors.

Unfortunately, the organized world has figured out a way to deal with disorganized slobs like us.  They hand out telephones to the most miserable bottom-feeding creatures they can find, and then they give them our phone numbers and tell them to call us up and try as hard as possible to ruin our day.  These wretched beings are known as bill collectors, and these are the type of beings who, once incarcerated, would never be offered parole because they are incapable of feeling sympathy for another human being.  Do not attempt to explain your situation to a bill collector, because understanding is beyond them.  The only way to react to bill collectors is to fight back.  As a human being, you are flawed, it is your right to be flawed, and it is insane for these troglodytes to imply that you are a bad person or that you should be ashamed just because you forgot to send a piece of mail.  It would be even more insane for you to believe them.

If a bill collector is going to insist on destroying your weekend by calling you at eight in the morning to harass you about money you already know you owe, the least you can do is make him feel just as miserable as you do.  These are just a few of the options for doing so.

1. Preach: When the collector asks why you haven’t paid your bill yet, go into a long sermon about how money is the invention of the devil. Shout, scream, cry, sing, and chant, or do anything else that you feel helps you get your point across.  Do not stop until you get him to hang up on you.  Collection calls are a sort of chicken fight based around intimidation and annoyance.  If you can get him to hang up first, you win.
2. Flirt: There is nothing more irritating when you are trying to intimidate and harass someone than the other person becoming turned on by it.  Find every threat he makes very exciting and tell him so.  When he asks you when you plan to pay, tell him, “When I have you here to pay in person, in sweet love and kisses.”  Again, this should keep him away for a few hours.
3. Tell him you will put him in touch with your financial secretary: Leave the phone with your cat to handle the situation.
4. Laugh: Again, the secret is reacting to their call in a way that infuriates them and makes them feel like failures.  Laughing in their ear should do the trick.  The meaner they get, the funnier you should find it.  Laugh so hard that you have to drop the phone, or call your spouse or roommate over to get in on the joke.
5. Play deaf: The more someone has to repeat himself, the more he loses track of the meaning of what he is trying to say. Don’t bother to ham it up.  Just keep it simple and keep asking, “What?” or “I’m sorry, one more time?”  He will give up eventually.  Or, he’ll lose his voice.  Either way you come out on top.
6. Distract: Keep him from getting his point across by telling him that you always wanted to be a bill collector.  Ask him how he got started and how you can too.  Be so friendly and happy to be talking to him that he questions his abilities and wonders if he should look into a new line of work.  If he stays on task for a while, act impressed by each bullying line he gives you, then repeat them back to him imitating his tone.  Be sure to ask how he thinks you did.
7. Blow a whistle into the phone

When you are organized, you always know whether or not you can afford something.

What’s the fun in that? I don’t want to buy something I KNOW I can afford.  All the good stuff makes me sweat a little with fear that the next day one of those big, hairy, tattoo-covered repo-men will show up at my door, demanding all my property back.  That’s the thrill!