On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 15:05:24 EDT, Met History <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> [snip] I extend thanks to all (or at least all males,
> since females obviously too busy to worry about phone bills) for your
> kind help and thoughts on matter.

well, hey, I finally had a chance to sit down and read the last couple
weeks of BP, and here's what THIS girl thinks about phone bills etc:

I think it would be _swell_ if you bought me a ford falcon to replace my
crappy little rice burner, that despite having close to 200K miles on it
and having been "totalled" at christmas by a NY taxi, was still faithfully
carrying me, my dog and cat, my co-workers, piles of 10'-0" treated lumber,
bags of edison trash, pressure washers and toolboxes, and all sorts of
other miscellaneous stuff hither and yon, back and forth, and up and down
the highway until I inattentively drove it right up the rear end of a big
ole dodge week before last...

I also think that BOY should pay his phone bill and not gripe, as there are
grown MEN and WOMEN in the NYC area who bring home a heck of a lot less
than $450 a week doing jobs like cleaning up dog crap from the city
sidewalks and trimming bushes and grubbing out lawns and emptying bedpans
and grinding mortar out of joints on buildings in the summer heat and etc
etc etc, but yet somehow manage to pay carfare and ridiculous rents and
doctor bills and buy groceries and send most of their money home to support
families, and then  STILL pay their own phone bills to call their PARENTS
in whatever third world state or country they came here from to labor, like
say, kentucky or mississippi, if not tajihkistan or honduras...

BOY needs to realize that $10/hour BEFORE taxes is the going rate for many
if not most of the people who labor intensely to make this country the
pleasant place it is, and that the minimum wage is still less than
$6/hour...

that said, I also think it would not be too awful if PARENT then loaned BOY
money at 2% above prime to complete summer plans, and got the repayment
terms in writing this time, so as to avoid future misunderstandings about
who is paying for what, when...   fair enough?

perhaps PARENT could then present BOY the option to "work off" the debt by
compensating him at minimum wage to do volunteer work as was suggested
earlier, as opposed to _forcing_ him to do volunteer work as
a "punishment"...  leave it up to the BOY to decide whether he would rather
find a higher paying job on his own in order to pay off PARENT...

suggest if he defaults, PARENT sic his SISTER on him     ;)

best to all, from
deb "now riding fat-burner instead of driving rice-burner" bledsoe

girl project co-ordinator, of late privileged to work with the best

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