victory!

i don't know if this is terribly obvious already, but usually i'm the one who gets mad at customer service people. i've spent days of my life on the phone, yelling at delta and wells fargo and getting more and more frustrated with their automatic robot answering machines, eventually throwing my phone across the room. tommy usually plays the part of listening to me vent and then making me some popcorn to calm me down. he's always so dang patient and polite on the phone, even when talking to the incompetents who work for united. or american express. or chase. or anyone.

but this week, tommy got an email with our monthly utilities bill from duke energy and it had a nasty surprise: it was twice as high as any bill we've ever gotten. the reason for this oversight was because duke energy claimed that our meter had broken during the previous billing cycle so our bill for that earlier cycle was too low. so, naturally, they just decided to add a random amount that they thought appropriate to our bill for this month to make up for that mistake. so we were being charged over $100 for that month's energy--and it was the month that we were gone in europe and for camille's wedding. we were quite literally home for four days out of that whole billing cycle, and the only thing that had been running that whole time was our fridge.

tommy went into fighting mode. i think this song was playing in the background:

first he called the company and complained so much they had him talk to the manager, who tried to slink around with the whole "it's a policy" excuse, but tommy wasn't going to back down. after getting off the phone, he compiled a giant fax with our flight information, several of our previous energy bills, and an intimidating cover letter that used the words "outraged" and "unreasonable" and "contact my lawyer and/or seek mediation in the small claims court." he sent it off--twice, just in case the first one didn't go through--and we settled down to wait the prerequisite three business days to hear what their decision was.

and on friday, he got a new bill in his email with all the additional charges dropped. no explanations or apologies, but no extra charges. those few hours of work were well worth the satisfaction of having TAKEN THE MAN DOWN.

would you ever believe that? beneath his mild-mannered ways, there really is an problem-causing fighter for justice. i have never been so proud.