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 -- To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to: <http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>