Applying for Loans: An Earlier Episode of Adventures with Bill Pine in the Middle Class

recovered from March 25th, 2008

mood: grim hilarity. music: LOUD TALKING

So im finally paying my overdue tuition for this semester! Really, I am being held captive as a spectator to Bill Pine's battle with the Federal Credit Bureau.

Bill and I are sitting in his office calling various banks and asking them all the gory details about the prime rate and the abeyance period. or whatever. really, its like this:

my dad said we have to use my computer so that i can have all the information (what information?) so im fucking around on facebookwhile bill calls up well-meaning ladies with country accents and grills them until they are near tears. he has piles of yellow and white pieces of paper with hand-written notes. but because he cant find or cant read anything he writes down, he asks the same questions over and over again.

i want to run away from this situation! i dont want to be associated with my father's abrasive money-personality. on the other hand, if i sit here quietly he will do all of the grunt work for me, and it'll still look like i'm involved. i am being responsible! being tangential to this process is being a grownup!

AND NOW!!!(Bill insists on using the speakerphone for all important telephone transactions)BUT THE BANK GUY CANT HEAR HIM! BILL IS YELLING INTO THE PHONE: "CAN YOU HEAR ME?! I AM YELLING INTO THE PHONE, THERE IS NOT MUCH MORE I CAN DO! I AM GOING TO KEEP TALKING NOW! WHAT IS DIRECT DEBIT?! MY NAME IS WILLIAM PINE? WHAT IS YOUR NAME? IM SORRY, WHAT IS YOUR NAME? IM SORRY.....WHAT IS YOUR NAME, SIR?"

Bill's mumbling aside: "the guy's in india, we have a bad connection."

Since Dell's office is in India, and he has spent many bad speakerphone hours on the phone with Dell, he assumes that all phone problems are because of India, not because of speakerphone. That doesn't even make sense. Why would Sallie Mae's offices be in India? He just can't bring himself to find fault with the speakerphone. Speakerphone is the shining merit badge on his boyscout sash of Modern Technology. Hip to the jive, man. "PRIME MINUS ONE PERCENT!"

There is one more farcical condition to keep in mind during all of this. This has now been going on for nearly 4 hours, and Bill is still bellowing into the speakerphone under the guise that since I can hear it, I am involved. Meanwhile, he has asthma. And its getting harder and harder for his voice to maintain its assertive volume. In the last half hour, he has degenerated to a quavery yell. "Pr-PRIME...What's the Prime?!"