Perpetual Smile

You know how sometimes, just when you think everything is about to get better it all falls down on you again?

I went to meet with a representative from a local marketing freelancing firm. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss my skills and to fill out tax forms. The meeting went pretty smoothly, and I left feeling pretty good about my new relationship with the firm. I came home and ate, and then got online to email the representative some PDFs of my work. There was an email from my university entitled (no subject), which I thought was kind of weird.

The email said that if I didn’t pay my balance in full at the close of the business day for the Summer 2009 session, my schedule would be dropped.

Now, when I went through this last semester, they didn’t email me until a couple of months or so after I’d registered. I figured that I had enough time to pay as much as I could before setting up a payment plan. The Summer 2009 session I’m attending doesn’t start until June 1st, and I never received an email about my statement like the bill pay website said I would.

Their business day ends at 6:30 or something like that (maybe 5:00 for all I know), and I didn’t get home until about 7. So you can just imagine how I felt about all of this.

I went online to see if my balance still shows (there was always a balance but it always said “no statements at this time”), and how much I’d need to put down for a first payment. The total? $395.33. I don’t think I even have half of that in my bank accounts.

The worst part is I put down $75 a couple of weeks ago. I doubt I’m going to get that back now. Both of my parents said I should call them tomorrow, but I doubt they’ll do anything for me. They’re a big institution; why would they care about little old me?