it's taken a long time to make these... the immense scope and lack of resources (available resource: me) were overwhelming.

We changed our phone number after CONXTR charged us for voice mail service we never signed up for. Now we have AllianceOne and MRS Associates calling for people who used to have our phone number: this isn't so bad. I'm not getting charged $14/month for services somebody else ordered so they could go eat at Ruby Tuesday's or Outback, and the calls are recordings, mostly. When they aren't they're polite. Can some multilingual person fluent in Hindi, or Urdu or Gujarati please share the appropriate phrase that translates into English as "There is no Abraham here, I have had this phone number for a very short time. Therefore keeping this number on your file will not help you find Abraham. Please remove the phone number from your files. Have a karma-filled day"?

I like the discussion on public health: I thought I was the only person who didn't think it was cool for HMOs to refuse claims from employee benefits when the employee's spouse has a pre-existing condition. Therefore I resolved to relocate back to the homeland. I don't feel like having my health compromised just to make some corporation richer, you know?

I also closed my son's account: it was a School Savings account opened at Washington Mutual. Chase sent me a letter saying my son's assets would be seized by the FDIC if I didn't claim them. I remembered that Chase hasn't exactly improved things for former Washington Mutual accountholders. I love my son too much to let him be nickled and dimed out of his school savings account. There is nothing like a mother's love. Credit union account here we come. Naturally my little one asked me in the bank if he could gamble his funds. Good to leave them laughing.