{"id":1142,"date":"2007-03-23T03:14:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-23T03:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=1142"},"modified":"2014-10-01T03:47:55","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T03:47:55","slug":"confession-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=1142","title":{"rendered":"Confession time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have phone issues. More specifically, phone company<\/em> issues. I’ve just finished writing out the monthly bills, and among them was a $16.52 check to AT&T, who is our long-distance provider. I don’t need long-distance service; in fact I haven’t placed a long-distance call in the last three months, at least. So why am I getting a bill from AT&T for $16.52?<\/span>
<\/span>
Non-usage.<\/span>
<\/span>
AT&T makes me pay them $5.00 a month plus taxes and surcharges because I don’t use their service. Isn’t that un-American? Unpatriotic even? Sneaky and underhanded? Like bad business?<\/span>
<\/span>
The last time AT&T decided to charge a monthly non-usage fee I called them and signed myself up for a plan that avoided the non-usage fee by paying 25 cents a minute on any long-distance calls. 25 cents a minute is a lot to pay to call my brother who lives in the next county (somehow considered long-distance), but I went along with the plan to avoid paying for something specifically because I was not making use of it<\/em>.<\/span>
<\/span>
Now AT&T has decided to charge me 25 cents a minute on any calls I do make, or the monthly $5.00 non-usage fee – whichever will put more money in their bloated pockets. Is At&T that desperate for money?<\/span>
<\/span>
Dissing AT&T feels sort of like sacrilege to me. My father worked for them for his whole career. My brother worked for them for his whole career until they layed him off as my father lay dying (nice – thanks AT&T!)<\/span>
<\/span>
Part of me feels silly for fussing over it at all. I pay three times that amount for a cell phone I hardly use – mostly for calling my brother (to avoid that 25 cents a minute charge) and for emergencies – but it’s the point of the thing, you know?<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span>
My other brother, Brian, the real writer (and poet) in the family has finally decided to stop lurking and left a comment (and a poem) on this post<\/a> the other day. Have a look!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have phone issues. More specifically, phone company issues. I’ve just finished writing out the monthly bills, and among them was a $16.52 check to AT&T, who is our long-distance provider. I don’t need long-distance service; in fact I haven’t placed a long-distance call in the last three months, at least. So why am I … Continue reading Confession time<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}