This page ©2001
Chip Brown.

Help me!

Driving home the other night I turned onto my road only to get behind this car going 15mph. That's not unusual in itself, I usually get behind the idiots that drive in a perpetual school zone. But there was something odd about this car.

As I followed along behind this car in the pouring rain, through the subdivision, I noticed they would stop in front of every house. And at every stop all the windows would come down and yellow bags would fly from the car in all directions.

Now, I've often drove down the highway and saw where road workers had picked up trash. They pick up trash and put it in bags and line the road with them. I'm sure you've all seen these garbage bags along the side of the road. They bag up the road-junk and neatly stack them on the shoulder. That night dogs come along and redistribute the junk all over the road. The next day the road workers are back picking up the same garbage. I guess it's one of those government plans to keep people employed.

What the heck was I talking about? Oh yeah! I have often thought of loading up my garbage and just sitting it in one of these roadside piles. They surely wouldn't notice a few more bags. Why should I continue to pay BFI to haul my garbage away, when I can just sit it on the side of the road?

Now this car, I figured was thinking like me, except they were stopping at everyone's house and tossing out their bags! I thought this was funny until they pulled up to my yard and threw some bags at my house. I pulled in my driveway and retrieved the bag from the mud puddle, intending on hurling it back at them. It wasn't garbage, it was my new soggy Knoxville phonebook. These people were phone book deliverers. Six dollars an hour to drive up and down the roads throwing phone books in the mud! I should have applied for that job.

Anybody besides me notice that the phonebook has no coupons this year? What a rip off. I always look forward to my phone book pizza coupons. But on page 18 I found something that I thought could be more valuable!

It was a phone number for KUB (Knoxville Utilities Board) and what they call their Project Help line. I didn't think much of it at the time, but later it would come in handy.

Three days later my bathtub faucet sprang a leak. After calling several plumbers and realizing I should have went to plumber's school for the money they charge, I laid down my phone and determined I could fix it myself. It was easy enough to take apart. But I dropped this one screw down in the wall. I stuck my arm way down in there to retrieve it. Now, not only was the screw lost in the wall, so was my arm.

I tried for several minutes to extract my arm from my house. No luck, I realized I should call for help. I couldn't remember all those numbers on the back of the Rescue Squad card I got the last time I donated money. However, I remembered my friends at KUB and their new Project Help phone number!

Well, let me tell you the lady at that number was little help to me. She didn't seem to care that my arm was stuck in the wall, she just wanted to talk about my electric bill and my yearly income. Finally, I made her realize I needed more immediate help and explained to her how I couldn't move my arm. She then connected me with their handicapped services office.

These people were at least a bit more friendly than the first lady who, no matter what her phone number said, was no help to me. This second lady listened to my story about how I couldn't move my arm. She asked me when exactly I lost the use of my arm. Simple enough to answer, I replied, "when I got it stuck in my wall."

This lady then said in order to process my request for help she would need my Social Security number. I explained that it was in my wallet in the bedroom. Crazy as heck, she told me she'd hold while I went and got it. I explained to this imbecile that I was calling her because I couldn't move. If I could walk to the bedroom I wouldn't need her help. Finally, I gave up on KUB ever helping me get my arm out of the wall. My wife came home an hour later and rubbed butter all over my arm and slipped it out of the wall. Should have called her in the first place.

My wife tells me that KUB's Project Help is where they help people pay their electric bills in the winter. She said it had nothing to do with idiot rescue.

So I called them back to explain my misunderstanding. The lady there was very nice this time. While I had her on the phone I asked her where I could send my bill to get it paid this winter. She told me I had too much money to qualify to have my electric bill paid. I told her I'd keep her number handy because at the rate my electric bills were going up, in a couple of months I'd be eligible.

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