Century stupid, emergency pack, $3500 to the curb

So yesterday I was busy making calls to tons of different places trying to get accounts of my mom resolved.   For the most part it was a positive experience, everyone was nice, cooperative, understanding, and offered their condolences, except one place, Century Link, who provided internet and land line service for mom.  I told the guy that my mom passed away last week and I needed to cancel her service.  The guy offered no “I’m sorry to hear that”, simply “What is the account number”.

I give him the information he asked for.  He then tells me there is a $200 early cancellation fee.  Well despite being a bit beaten down from the events of the last week  this instantly got my fuse burning.  I asked him how there could be an early termination fee when she has had the service for over four years?  My fuse expired when the guy says to me “Why did you say you were cancelling again?”  “WERE YOU NOT LISTENING? MY MOTHER DIED LAST WEEK” I blurted out abruptly and angrily.  I couldn’t believe he was paying so little attention.

The guy then tells me that the fee is waived if a customer is deceased, how nice.  He told me things were cancelled but was unable to provide me with some sort of confirmation number.  He said confirmation would arrive in the mail.  Idiots.

Another one of my calls was to the hospital billing department.  I was trying to get a handle on if I could be seeing any surprise huge bills connected with mom’s care.  As has been the case with every NCH staff member I have dealt with in the past week, the woman on the other line was extremely kind and accommodating.  She explained to me exactly how it all works and that I should not be scared by the massive bill I will be seeing in the mail.  She said that it will be submitted to Medicare and between that and the insurance supplement that mom carried more than likely it will take care of the medical expenses which is a big relief.  She even gave me her direct number if I needed anything going forward, so nice.

When we were cleaning out mom’s place we found a single pack of cigarettes in the small cabinets above the stove.  Evidently this was mom’s emergency pack.  A tired smile came across my face when I saw it was still wrapped in plastic and untouched.  The pack was thrown in the trash, something I wish we could have done permanently 40 years ago.

One of the bigger challenges in cleaning out mom’s place was what to do with my old 61″ Sony projection TV that I gave to mom years ago.  Mom loved the tv and it still worked just fine despite no maintenance in 13 years.  The problem is nobody wants older style tv’s anymore, even charities.  I tried giving it to the donation center a couple miles from mom’s place but they said they don’t take any TV’s produced before 2007.  So we wound up using the truck Todd rented to deposit the tv in the garage at the house.

Now I probably could have dicked around, listed the tv on Craigslist and gotten a handful of dollars for it but I just did not feel like adding that to my already long list of to do’s.  Instead I utilized my pretty reliable curbside disposal service.  I rolled the tv to the road, attached a sign that said WORKS GREAT, FREE and crossed my fingers.  When Torrin, Cindy and I left for an errand the tv was still there.  On our way back it started to rain which concerned me, if the tv was sitting out in the pouring rain it surely would no longer be worth anything to anyone.  I breathed a very large sigh of relief when we approached the house and saw the 61″ behemoth was gone.  When we built the house in 2001 the Sony tv was the crown jewel, fitting beautifully in the entertainment nook.  To have what was then a $3500 tv given away more than decade later felt a bit weird but if it continues to serve somebody else needs going forward I’m happy enough with that.

I was so tired on the way home last night it was ridiculous and dangerous.  I literally could not keep my eyes open and caught myself more than once momentarily dozing off.  Sunday night I awoke before 4AM to pee but could not fall back asleep as my mind was racing between everything I needed to do.  Last night my sleep was again interrupted by Nicki whining by the bedside to go out at 4:45 AM, something she never ever does at Ali’s place.  I’m hoping to get my first solid block of sleep in awhile tonight as I returned the dogs to Ali’s place this morning.