Well, color me befuddled. I made the mistake of opening my mail today to discover yet another of those random acts of unkindness our lovely state has blessed me with. An official driver license suspension reminder. A reminder, mind you. No warning. No initial notice. No ticket. No offense. Nothing. Just a reminder that my license was suspended in November of last year and oh-by-the-way would I please pay the $260? I thought reminders came after other things, but apparently you now need to be prepared for them to come first. And very, very, very, very late. I abhor lateness.
Huh?
Come to find out Texas Department of Public Safety doesn't actually do their own work any more (which is laughable, but I swear I laughed at no one). They hire a private company to do it for them. The private company has the power to suspend or reinstate my license (they say), but doesn't have access to any records to tell me why this blessed event has occurred. So, if I would just pay the money, in about eight days this would all go away and that would be the easiest thing to do. I was assured of this by a polite young gentleman who could probably be my son. When I asked him why I should pay it if I had done nothing he said "so you can get your license back." Excellent point, that.
I said OK and hung up.
I called back.
I was actually hoping that the next customer service person would not be, well, different? I didn't want to argue, I just wanted to talk to someone who could help. They don't seem to know who that might be. But if I had a debit card, they'd be glad to handle this over the phone! I finally had to ask that they stop saying that. I explained very, very slowly and very, very sweetly that they weren't going to get any money. I needed help. I wanted to know why my license had been suspended. That was all. I just don't have $260 lying around every time they want to randomly suspend my license. I need to know that it was for a legitimate reason--which I have been wracking my brain for and cannot come up with.
They hung up on me.
Huh?
All the information on the notice leads only to this private corporation whose name I am very nicely withholding from my post. And NO I don't want to pay a lawyer to figure this out. And talk about cramping my style...dad and I are THE drivers for all the people in our family. Now Dad is the chauffeur until I guess I just pay off TxDPS because they want the money?
You see, to me this is roughly equivalent to some random guy that I don't know showing up at my door and saying "You HAVE to pay me $260 dollars or you're not allowed to leave your house except on foot--just because I want the money." My response would be "Let me get my shoes." (Little do they know the backpack is already packed, but that is a story for another time). I don't hand out random money. Do you? Apparently someone does. Actually, a lot of people must because this company seemed to think that no one would need a reason for paying them exorbitant amounts of cash (they actually did tell me I didn't have to pay MUCH compared to SOME PEOPLE). You mean people just pay out MORE than $260 without knowing why???!! I mean, really??!! Even if you knew you had done something, wouldn't you want to know what it was so you would know how NOT to do it again? I would.
But then I am a strange creature that counts my money and balances my checkbook, etc. I know exactly how much I can spend and on what. Right down to the $10 data package on my iPhone. Yes, I even know the items on my cell-phone bill. I have to...
Welcome to my strange and bizarre life...
Scat
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