O, how I hate you, Bell South

There are only two people employed by BellSouth, Tanequa and Tyrone. Oh, sure, there may be more bodies than that, but the only two people you ever get to talk to are Tanequa and Tyrone. I'm sure that some day, in the future, I'll be talking to Sid, short for Siddhartha Nahasapemapetilan, and I'll look back on the halcyon days of BellSouth, when I could talk to good old Tanequa and Tyrone.

But for today, I had no such glorious visions. I printed out my last bill from them, steeled myself, and dialed the phone. After, of course, warning Jesse that if I started stabbing things at random, he should call for help, as I would have entered a murderous rage by then.

"Good afternoon, this is Tyrone. How can I help you today?"

Long story short: This service got cancelled on April 11th. Yesterday I got an inexplicable bill for $32ish. Tyrone was able to amend this bill from an inexplicable $32ish to an inexplicable $8.92. I instinctively knew that I would never get him to dismiss this last $8.92, so I pushed forward in the "repeat and clarify" fashion that had gotten me this far: "So, what you're telling me is that if I pay you $8.92, we'll be done?" I was assured that this was the case, and promptly sent over to the payment department.

"Good afternoon, my name is Tanequa. Can I have your account number and secret code?"

After what I assure you was a very entertaining exchange involving my lack of a secret code, I offered to pay my bill.

"You are aware that there is a $2.50 charge for paying by phone?"

YOU GODDAMN PHONE MONKEY. TO HELL WITH YOUR GODDAMN PHONE CHARGE. I was still in control of my emotions at this point, so I was able to pull it together, tell her that I was not necessarily interested in paying $2.50 for the privilege of giving Bell South $8.92, and asked if I could pay online.

"You may certainly pay your phone bill on bellsouth dot net," Tanequa parroted, in an astonishingly human-like fashion. "However, in the case of this account you will not be able to pay online because the account is closed."

Urge to kill at this point was up to 11.

So I'm mailing them a check in exchange for never having to speak to them again.