Best day

[cosmolinguist]

When the mail arrived today, we had:

• My February whisky from Whisky-Me, a Christmas gift that really does keep giving the whole year.
• an unsigned valentine! typed address and everything! I showed it to Andrew who looked over it, slightly baffled, just as I had
  He noticed the postmark was from Guernsey. "Do you know anyone from Guernsey?" he asked. I don't. "Do you know anyone who was going on holiday in Guernsey?" Not as far as I know, I laughed.
• a letter for Andrew from the Student Loan Company. Saying they owe him money. "I bet its two pounds," I said. He thought maybe twenty or something. There was a number to ring, so he was going to call them while I took the dog for a walk. When I came back in, he was on hold and told me how much it was and...it's a lot. Easily a month's worth of mortgage and bills. "Remember all those times they called me and I kept hanging up on them?" he said. "This is what they were trying to tell me!" I shall be using this for a long time as an example of why it's better to face things you think are scary than to run away from them!

And, sad as I am that my Arabic teacher is ill today, I'm delighted it means I have only one lecture today instead of six hours in university trying to cram more knowledge into my head than is likely to fit at the moment.

Comments

[rmc28]

YAY I am so glad for your SLC windfall :-)

(Also, Guernsey is where at least two buy-cards-over-internet companies - Moonpig and Touchnote - are based and post out from.)

[cosmolinguist]

Ah, that'd explain the typed address and how boring the envelope looked, too. :)

I checked when I got home and it totally was a Moonpig card.

[zimena]

Getting unexpected money like that is truly the best feeling! YAY for you!

Also, so true about facing things you think might be scary. Not sure I'm going to learn from your experience, though :D

[theandrewhickey]

It's not about avoiding things I think are scary, at least not in this case.
For years and years I've had debt collectors chasing me because they claim, incorrectly, that I owe a thousand pounds or so on "unpaid" student loans from 2001-2004. I don't (I wasn't earning enough in those years to repay the loans, and it's a bureaucratic cock-up on their end that made them think I was), and I'm never going to pay them money I don't owe, but telling them that doesn't do any good -- they just pass the notional "debt" onto a different debt-collection company and the cycle begins again. So, I just put the phone down on anyone claiming to represent the SLC, because it saves them and me a lot of hassle.

[cosmolinguist]

Except it was more hassle for them as they had to keep on ringing you for years, and it was more hassle for you because you were stressed you were getting chased for money you didn't owe instead of being repaid money that you were owed.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, he immediately told me that he has no plans to learn form his experience either. :) I was not surprised.

[miss_s_b]

I am not surprised either

[norfolkian]

That Whisky Me thing looks interesting!

[cosmolinguist]

I've had three of them so far and they're all great! And the little Capri Sun-esque pouches mean it fits through your letterbox so it isn't the kind of subscript you have to be home to collect.