Monday Meanderings - Oct 5

The other morning in Fran's parking lot, we encountered an elderly, well-dressed gentleman who politely asked me if could  give him $1.50 for bus fare. I'm not prone to respond to panhandlers, but this man did not look like or talk like your typical street-corner citizen so I gave him the money. Afterward, we were wondering just how much bus fare was in Austin these days and Mom mentioned that she didn't know, since she never had to pay while busing down to class near UT. That's because Seniors ride free.

I thought about that as I watched the elderly, white-haired gentlemen walk down the street after conning me for "bus fare" he didn't need.

I'm currently engaged in a small struggle with AT&T over their incessant reminder notices that it's time to renew the Pay-as-you-go balance on our cell phones. You may recall that we changed to that phone plan some time back after deciding it was the least-cost plan for our cell phone usage. I typically add 90 days use at a time, and all is well for about 60 days. Then AT&T begins sending daily text messages that it is time to re-up. That's not so bad, but at about 75 days, whenever you try to use your phone a recorded message jumps in to tell you it is time to renew and you can do that right now from this very cell phone, or you can be a kill-joy and press the # key to go ahead and complete the call that you set out to make in the first place.

In the first battle, I spent quite a bit of time with Juan Gonzales, the friendly AT&T Customer Support representative from El Salvador or wherever the call center is located and after a number of pauses while he spoke with someone who might - or might not - know more than he did, he assured me that we would no longer get those messages. It took a little time to get across to him he only had two options - stop the notifications or lose our business, and he seemed fully on board with that.

Too bad that I got a text message reminding me to renew my minutes a few hours after my conversation with Juan - as did Mom, WHOSE MINUTES WERE RENEWED ALREADY.

So the score currently is Bob 0 - AT&T 1. However, I will win the war.

As I sit here typing, we are enjoying a delightfully cool day with a steady rain. I'm sorry for the 65,000 people at the ACL Festival who are getting soaked at the moment. If they are true devotees to their music they won't mind. Besides, we need the rain.

A friend sent me a collection of Senior bumper stickers. They include:

"Cremation?
Think outside the box"

"I'm retired.
I was tired yesterday and I'm tired again."

"I'm in the initial stages of my retirement.
SS, CDs, IRAs, AARP..."

"I asked my wife if old men wear boxers or briefs.
She said Depends."

"Sometimes I wake up grumpy...
and some days I let him sleep."


And I'll bet you don't have one of these in your neighborhood.

A neighbor up the street owns a rental place where you can get your bouncy houses and water slides for your party. He quite often has his inflatables set up on his driveway, but this is the first time we've seen the caterpillar. Hmmm. Maybe that's what ate all the leaves off our tomato plants.