So Glad You’re Aboard!
From time to time I glance at the ' Text the Times' letters, and this week I hearkened to the readers who seem to be tuned in to what is going on politically in this country. So much so, that I feel no need to add to the mix, other than to allude to a call I made just today that exemplifies what we are all going through.
To a phone carrier about a bill.
A non-existent bill.
For March.
When we had terminated coverage back in January.
We called the carrier over and over about the bill. But, the automated answer would cut us off before we could input any information at all, with the words: “You have no existing account,” and “please call another carrier.”
Which is HYSTERICAL… because that is exactly WHY we called in the first place!
To repeat: We did not have an account with them, BECAUSE WE CUT THEM OFF IN JANUARY and handed all our phones back into them.
So, after some research, I found a number that got a human on the phone.
First thing they did was try to transfer me.
“No, no, no! Don't transfer my call,” I told them. “Your automated system will hang up on me because it says I don't have an account. That's why I'm talking to YOU!
We are getting bills when we don't have an account with you.”
He transferred me.
Got another person on the phone. I asked them to send a letter to me or e-mail me, to let me know the situation was handled, because their company was obviously incapable of handling billing problems over the phone.
Then, I contacted the Attorney General of Arkansas's Customer Complaint
Continued on Page 5
‘Wordaholic’
By Robert L.Hall ROBERT HALL (cont.)
Department and let them know what was going on.
You see, some companies are too big… like a lot of outfits out there these days. Outfits that think they can just do what they like, when they like, how they like and to whom they like. Outfits like our current regime in power.
Oh, you knew I was going to go there, didn't you?
But, no… I'm not going to dredge through the litany of horrors that is being foisted upon all of us currently.
Because I don't know, at this point, if there is anything we can do about it.
Our politicians seemed to be frozen to the spot — either out of expediency or fear, or greed — or all three.
“Go along to get along,” seems to the policy among the professional politicians in Washington, D.C. these days.
But, I don't care.
I will still phone in my complaints, e-mail my representatives, talk to this one, chat with another, write my concerns about my nation's wayward ways. 'Course I know that the results of my actions toward politicians will most likely be similar to that of trying to teach a pig to sing. You know the old saw, don't you?
“
Yet, I still don't care.
That's because this government was set up by our forefathers who strove in their wisdom to establish a system that would serve the people, and not the other way around.
Only, you wouldn't know it, looking at the news these days.
Dictates… decrees… Executive Orders.
“Lions and tigers and bears… oh my!”
I am afraid I would agree with Tacitus on the present state of affairs and the Plus-50 Executive demands being churned out by the current Socialist-in-Chief:
“ The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
But occasionally, the light peeks out over the horizon.
I am in mind of the abortion legislation at the state level, as well as protection of female athletes from biologically-born males in competitive sports in this state. At least, locally, there seems to be some semblance of sanity left.
Yet, many are cowering in fear at the present time.
Because as Voltaire observed, with his dictum:
' It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.'
But, where would that leave us? Do we just do nothing and surrender our 'God-given' rights, as our Constitution describes them and become robotic wards of the state?
I think not; rather, we should remember:
“ The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
Thomas Jefferson penned that, and it is as true now as it was when he wrote it. And, again, when I see your comments in
I can see you are on board with that, as am I.
Robert L. Hall is a resident of Marion and has a Bachelor’s Degree in music from the University of Memphis and a Master’s Degree from Florida State University. He is the pianist for Avondale Baptist Church and a writer of fiction on Amazon eBooks.
