Think of It As An Investment.

So, I get the benefit of what we at the Econ Department like to call "poor people's internet." The local cable company is offering a lifeline internet service to those who make less than $21,000 for a two person household (yo).

Well, when my wife and I went down to negotiate this, I distinctly remember bringing in my tax returns, all my documentation, and discussing the "cable transport fee" with the young woman behind the counter. Now I asked her, on several occasions if I still needed to pay the "cable transport fee" of $10 since I was not a television subscriber, and I got the distinct and clear message that yes, I was going to have to pay it, unless I subscribed to both the TV and internet services. Even though I was very obviously dirt poor (as all good GTA's are). So I figured "well, 10 bucks a month for internet is better than 40." So we have been paying this amount. Apparently up until tonight.

I was paying the bills, and realized I had not seen a Sunflower bill recently. I panicked. Checked my desk, the basket of papers and bills, and went online looking for how much they were going to ding me in rent fees. Well after going online and not finding any bills since August 6th, I notice the "amount due" line.
"-$131.00".

My lovely, beautiful, intelligent wife, while I am about to go medieval points out, "But doesn't that mean a credit of 131?" which calms me down. We call the good people at the local cable company, spend fifteen minutes on hold, and then talk to a very nice young woman who informs me that apparently there had been an "internal audit" which found that I had been wrongly charged $10 a month for the lifeline services. For about... 11 months. Soooooooooooooo... they credited my account. And seeing as my new lifeline payment for my "dirt poor" cable is $0 and NADA, the only charge I get from them is if we go over the bandwidth limit (1 gigabyte for poor people cable. No online movies for us :(.... until now....).

Yeah... or I guess we could go down there, get a refund check from them and pay the buck or so whenever we do go over the limit but... I'm a lazy man... a lazy, sexy man...