This Call is Being Monitored...

Funny how life works...I was typing out a furious essay on the state of the world. Basically, the essay, which I now decided was written in the wrong spirit, argued that a person speaking privately needs to be worried their words are being spied on. But a person blogging about random events or posting on social network sites needs to be even more careful because the internet police may take some random uber-ironic joke about school massacres and lock you up to make a point. It's better to decide if the threat was credible with the mouthy teenager in jail for 4 months, rather than learn too late he was serious. I guess that's the idea and sadly I can't really argue with their reasoning anymore. Fuck it! We live in a police state because we're all assholes who can't police ourselves.



Anyway, that essay got way off track in my Friday "let off steam Oggy beats his meat" frenzy of words and ridiculous arguments and even quoting from the bible and vowing to kill child kidnappers. Trust me, it deserves to remain in "draft" form forever. But I was typing it out like mad and my personal phone rings.

Oggy: Yes?
Male Voice: My name is blah blah and this call is being recorded...

I knew instantly that it was the ghost of Citizens Bank coming back to haunt me.

Oggy: Oh, really? You're recording this? Well I'm recording you.

What followed was an epic battle between myself and the collection agent. I sweated and cursed and really brought the guy to tears and chuckles with my advanced debate skills. At one point I said, "Honestly, I'm not paying for two reasons. First, the bank was wrong, these are predatory fines. I'll never pay them. They don't deserve more than $2. Second, YOU HAVE NO LEVERAGE! You haven't kidnapped my family, you don't hold any collateral of mine. You want to punish my credit report? I HAVE A FRACTURED SPINE! I don't care to pay and there's nothing you can do about it."

It went on and on until I decided to go completely on the offensive:

Oggy: Listen, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen. You're going to call...
Agent: Sir...
Oggy: YOU'RE GOING TO CALL CITIZEN'S BANK! You will call them and say, 'I have spoken to this former customer and think he was erroneously charged fines.'
Agent: You're asking me to lose my job.
Oggy: I'm asking you to do what's right. You want to do this. I can hear it in your voice and I believe in you.  You're a powerful person. You know what's right. I believe you can make the difference in this petty argument.
Agent: That's not going to happen.
Oggy: Yes, it is.
Agent: No. I never speak to my clients.
Oggy: Do it. Call them. Do it for me. For justice.
Agent: They won't change their mind.
Oggy: That's what you thought about me and you still called me.
Agent: It's my job.
Oggy: So take back your power. Join the fight. We'll win eventually. The machine will be stopped. We're going to win. The people....
Agent: I'M GOING TO TELL YOU YOUR OPTIONS ONE MORE TIME...
Oggy: CALL CITIZEN'S BANK. TELL THEM that you want my case reviewed. You know you want to. You know it's right.
Agent: You owe $129.
Oggy: Because of a $2.09 overdraft. Does that sound right?
Agent: I'm not disputing any of that. I'm merely...
Oggy: Don't be neutral. This is wrong. You've chosen a side. Don't pretend to be neutral.
Agent: This isn't a personal attack, Mr. Bleacher.
Oggy: Isn't it? Isn't it? You called me on my personal phone and I pay by the minute. How long have we been talking?
Agent: 27 minutes, not including the 8 minutes it took for you to provide me the address of the account.
Oggy: See? That's $2.70 in minutes. A dime a minute. How much are you getting paid by the hour?
Agent: I'm not going to discuss...
Oggy: ...because it's personal. See? This is personal. You're a person. I'm a person. I'm not Mr. Bleacher's secretary. I'm a person.
Agent: You have a debt of....


It went on and on. One of the greatest performances I've ever done. I made him finally hang up.
 But now it occurs to me that everything is held against us in a court of law. We're spied on. I can't even write a public screed against spies without getting called and having my conversation recorded. And then turn around and write it down and have others read it. Does any of this sound normal to anyone? Really? This is how we live now? It's SO FUCKED UP. THIS IS FUCKED UP> IF YOU ARE LISTENING CITIZENS BANK I"M NEVER PAYING YOU SO STOP CALLING FUCK YOU.