Andrew J. Lederer

at a desk by the window (the sun will prevent others from recoiling at the sight), covered with grease from the approx. 2/3 of a pound of pasta i made for myself and the accompanying home-made, oil-laden sauce. (the pork chop i fried up earlier apparently wasn't enough to satisfy my appetite despite the cookies i followed it up with.)

lots of garlic in the pasta-fixin's. if someone were near me, they'd probably notice that. (great shower here. i should use it.)

i didn't finish possibly (though probably not) remunerative work i had to do this morning. i won't get paid by the fake news people until i straighten out some paperwork but i have to call them and i'm too unmotivated to put new minutes on my phone.

an associate wants to brainstorm and i just want to lie down.

or sit up.

alone and quiet.

miserable and optimistic.


a guy paid me 40 dollars less than he said he had for something. i didn't count the money 'til days later.

my storage is gonna be up for sale again on may 3rd. i owe $335, more than $100 of which is late fees.

you may remember i said this wouldn't happen again, as they were lowering my monthly rate from $25 to $75 and it is true that the going rate for my unit is now $25. however, when i last paid my bill -- over the phone with a friend's credit card -- they ran the charge including the next month, before i had a chance to tell them not to.

rather than create havoc by attempting to have the girl reverse the charge and then reprocess it for the correct amount, i figured i'd be nice and let them reapportion the money based on the new rate after i got the change taken care of. (i had to move to the unit next to mine to get the lower rate -- it had to be as if i was starting over.)

so, i went to the storage place the next day and was told i had to pay a $25 processing fee to start over again.

fair enough, i thought. still a bargain. "take it out of the money left over from the coming month's rent your girl charged me yesterday."

but the manager wouldn't/couldn't do it.

she said something like "rent is rent, fees is fees" (although i'm sure it wasn't as "no tickee, no washee" as that), meaning she could only use the rent i'd paid toward other rent, not toward an account reopening fee. so, even though i had paid three times what would be my new monthly rent, i couldn't use any of the overage to cover the processing for the change.

if i had $25 in cash, the change could instantly be made and the extra $50 i'd paid in rent would cover me 'til the end of march.

but i didn't have an additional 25 bucks.

so i couldn't make the change at all.

and the rent accrued at the higher rate until, when i had some money, it still wasn't enough for me to cover the ballooning balance.

i looked at their website the other day. they don't even have spaces listed that cost more than $25. i've been paying an inflated rate from years ago.

yet somehow i now owe $335 when i should owe $25 or $50 or -- with fees -- $65.

because i was nice and didn't make the girl reverse the charge right after she put it through.

does that seem fair?

(by the way, i'm talking about storage usa, john st. in brooklyn -- an extra space company. maybe someone in corporate will scan the web, see this, feel guilty and straighten this out so that i don't lose my stuff and they get paid what's fair but no more.

. . . nah.)