Thursday, July 15, 2010

The land of lost bills and creepy women

One of my jobs at the Pod is to get their finances in order. The record keeping that occurred before I got there was a bit of a joke - meaning that a large amount of bills have fallen through the cracks. Possibly literally. They have a secret room there. I would not be surprised if they have a worm hole. So at least once a day I get a phone call from some entity saying that the Pod owes them money. It's normally an astronomical amount and the fellas at Kramerica and I scratch our heads at the state of it all and I stress out over QuickBook spread sheets and have to remind myself that it isn't my money. Nor is it my problem. In fact, I'm trying to fix the problem. But oh, what a problem it is. Which makes me wonder what am I doing in finance? Shouldn't I be writing poetry somewhere? Or thinking brilliant thoughts about life and art and Tyra Banks?

But that is a topic for another day. The topic today is about how I had to go down to the county offices and to pay a bill. I got a call yesterday from the county health office saying that we had a delinquent bill from December for the health permit and if it wasn't paid in 72 hours they were going to shut the Pod down. I braced myself for how much it was going to be, thinking that if it was put off in December, when according to the records they had a bit of spare change, then it must be a ridiculously high number.

$31.25.

That's how much was owed. $31.25. I laughed. And then I asked if they would take a credit card over the phone. No. It had to be paid in cash or by check and since there was no time to mail it, it had to be done in person. So I dug into the petty cash and headed out to Rancho Cucamonga in the 110 degree heat and I must have fallen through a different worm hole from the one that's eating all the bills because the County of San Bernardino's Public Health Office is staffed entirely of women who speak baby talk to each other.

It was creepy, to say the least.

They spoke plain English to me but when they were addressing each other the following statements came out of their mouths:

"Did you sees that my flower bloomed-ed?"
"You's is such a sweet fweind."
"Can you pwease count the quaters-es for me so this nice wady can be on her way."

Ew!!!!! And they ALL talked that way! It's like how twins will create their own language because they spend all their time together. It made me feel very sad. And a little icky.

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In other news, I finished The Hunger Games. Thank you and Thank you! I'll let you know the winner of the Mr. T bookmark shortly. Speaking of which, I have been doing a few commissioned felt pieces that I am finding to be outrageously fun. So if you have an idea of a d-list celebrity you would like done in felt let me know. I'll be happy to give it a whirl.

2 comments:

Rach said...

It kind of gives me the giggles to think of you poring over financial spreadsheets. But think of the amount of new material you're getting from putting a foot doc's office's finances in order.

Baby talk? From grown-ups? Gwoss!

Valerie said...

This story is deeply disturbing. Both the bit about the baby talk (chilling) and the part about financial spreadsheets (double chilling).